


Crossing Lines

by sometimeswelose



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Body Worship, Brother Feels, Canon Divergent, Consent Issues, Dean Winchester Actually Deals With Feelings, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Established Relationship, Healing, Hurt/Comfort, Internalized Homophobia, John Winchester's A+ Parenting, Light BDSM, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Past Abuse, Past Sex Work, Past Sexual Abuse, Praise, Pre-Series Dean Winchester, Sam Knows, Sam Ships It, Self-Esteem Issues, Slow Burn, Time Travel, Timeline Shenanigans, Trauma, and yet somehow also a, canon adjacent
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-30
Updated: 2021-03-14
Packaged: 2021-03-16 04:13:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 13
Words: 90,543
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29076138
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sometimeswelose/pseuds/sometimeswelose
Summary: Two Deans, one Cas - it's not as sexy as it soundsOrAn ethics lesson from HellOrThe one where Dean from the past meets Dean in the present. They're not sure they like each other very much.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester, Eileen Leahy/Sam Winchester
Comments: 501
Kudos: 571





	1. Backwards and forwards

**Author's Note:**

> Some notes and general warning (chapter-specific CWs in end notes) 
> 
> 1\. This fic was inspired in part by the superior fics: "Third-Person Viewing" by a_good_soldier  
> And "a turn of the earth" by microcomets 
> 
> 2\. A couple folks asked about a sequel to my previous work "In Through the Out Door" and I want to say that this is not precisely in the same universe, but is the spiritual successor to that fic. 
> 
> 3\. I meant to wait to post this until I had finished my re-watch of the series because I never got past season 9 or 10 and this is... obviously past that. But I have no self-control and have already written like 15k of this so OH WELL. Might be slightly more canon-divergent than intended. 
> 
> A General Warning: This fic is going to contain some emotional abuse and possibly some dubious consent/sexual coercion. This will be addressed, just probably not right away. Relatedly, this fic also deals with trauma. More specific content warnings will be in chapter end notes as it comes up. I try not to romanticize trauma and mental health issues, and many instances of past trauma will be referenced largely non-explicitly.

One moment, Dean Winchester is twenty-six years old, driving his 1967 Chevy Impala through a mountain pass somewhere between South Dakota and Montana, and the next he is falling onto his knees on a concrete floor. Somewhere in between, there was an unpleasant sensation of being yanked backwards by the nape of his neck and a blink of spinning blackness, but the change was so instantaneous that it's barely a memory. The Who that had been blasting from his car's speakers is gone and in the sudden silence, he hears a faintly annoyed British voice saying "There you go. As promised, one solution to your little problem." 

"Goddamn it, Crowley. Crowley! Get your ass back here." 

There's something both familiar and _wrong_ about this second voice. Dean gets a grip on the dizziness and surges to his feet, drawing his gun automatically and taking in the room. 

His instinctive observations hit him first: there are three adult men in the room, all bigger and older than him. Probably hunters. They seem to be in a basement - no windows and only the one door. There's a broken devil's trap with a chair in the center and a stool next to it with… a cup of tea? 

"Whoa, whoa, Dean, hey." 

The man directly between Dean and the door holds up his hands. His voice is unsettling too, and then Dean looks at him, really looks beyond his half-panicked initial assessment of him as a giant between himself and the exit. 

Instinct again has Dean half-lowering the gun before his conscious thought kicks in and he raises it to point directly at the man's chest. 

"Who the hell are you?" Dean spits out. Because the man in front of him looks a lot like Sam, he even sounds like Sam, but it's all wrong. The man's voice is deeper, his inflection off. His hair is almost shoulder length and his body is all filled out and tapered and he holds himself like he knows how to handle his indecently long limbs, not like he's an overgrown puppy. And his face… Dean hasn't got a clue what's going on, but even so, this stranger's face kind of breaks his heart. It's so much like Sammy's, but like something is _broken_ in there. Like his kid brother has had twenty years of hell dumped on his head all at once. 

The man sighs, hands still outstretched. "This is going to be hard to explain, but it's me. It's Sam." 

"You're going to have to try a little harder than that with me, Benjamin Button. _What_ are you and where the hell am I?" 

Dean can see the two other guys shifting in his peripheral vision, but he doesn't tear his eyes away from this Supposedly-Sam's tired face. 

"Um… okay. Look, how old are you? Twenty-five? Twenty-six?" 

Dean scowls. "I'm the one pointing the gun, I ask the questions here." 

"Yeah, fair, I get that," Sam says calmly, placatingly. "But it'll help me explain. You haven't, uh… you haven't come to pick me up at Stanford yet, have you?" 

Dean stares at him. No one is supposed to know Sam's at college - it's better, safer, if everyone just thinks he died or ran off. No reason to send word to the creepy crawlies to pick off the lone brother for some Winchester revenge. 

"Twenty-six," Dean says grudgingly. He doesn't add that he can't imagine how he would end up at Stanford anytime soon. He and Sam haven't spoken in about three years. The first year, Sam tried to stay in touch, but Dean was still angry and hurt and he'd made those conversations short and stilted. Now, Sam calls Bobby once a year and Bobby calls Dean, who eventually drops into the conversation with his dad the fact that Sam is still alive and, apparently, doing well. 

Dean can't think of anything that would make him go "get" his brother. Well, maybe if dad or Bobby died, but… 

"Okay," Sam says. "Okay. Uh. Look, I know you're probably not going to believe me right now, but time travel is real. Rare, but real. This is the year 2020, and I'm me. I can prove it, okay? Our parents are John and Mary Winchester. Our mom died in a fire when I was six months old and you were four. You carried me out of the house and basically raised me for our whole childhood. One time when dad left us alone in the Impala too long, we carved our initials into the frame and they're still there. We're named after our mom's parents, Samuel and Deanna Campbell." 

"Wait," Dean says. He lowers his gun slightly, although his heart is still hammering. "What?" 

"Too soon, Sammy," one of the other men says, and it's the gruff voice Dean heard earlier when he crash landed on his knees. 

He turns to take a good look at the two other guys and immediately raises the gun again, finger going to the trigger. 

Dean supposes this is supposed to be him in fifteen-some years, and it's a trippy resemblance, but Christ, this older Dean looks like he's been through two decades of war and a couple of stints in rehab. He's been as broken as Sam, washed out, the lines etched deep around his eyes. His hair is roughly the same, at least, but his beard is scruffy and Dean is pretty sure there's some gray in it. 

His voice has changed dramatically too, more so than Sam's. It's like somewhere along the way he swallowed some gravel or… or maybe screamed himself hoarse enough that he never fully recovered. 

There is something shuttered about this version of himself, if that's what this really is, something locked away in his eyes that Dean can't really understand. He's also looking at Dean with a waning shock and barely disguised hatred. He is holding a copy of the same gun in Dean's hand. 

Supposedly-Sam hastily steps between them. 

"Okay, right, you don't know about your grandparents yet, sorry. But look please, Dean… both of you. Everyone just put their guns down, please. I'm really Sam, and this is really Dean. And, uh, that's Cas." Sam jerks his head towards the other guy. "But you haven't met him yet." 

Cas looks more like an accountant than a hunter and Dean only takes a cursory glance at him. 

"Cas, can you please hand me the holy water?" 

Cas brings Sam a jug of water with a cross hanging in it from a shelf against the far wall. Dean watches carefully as Sam takes a drink, makes a face, and hands the bottle to the older Dean. Older Dean scowls but he takes a drink without flinching. 

"Not demons." Sam says. "You got silver on you, or do you trust mine?" 

Not taking his eyes off them, Dean reaches into his jacket pocket and pulls out the knife with the silver blade. He cuts his own arm first, then trades Sam for the holy water, even though Sam hasn't asked him for proof. 

Sam and then older Dean use the knife to cut thin lines in their arms. Dean notes absently that all three of them chose to do it in the exact same spot, with the exact same movement. It's eerie. 

The dizziness hits Dean again and he put his hand to his head for a second as nausea rises in his stomach. 

"Hey, hey, you okay?" Sam asks, reaching out a hand before thinking better of it. Older Dean has tucked his gun back into his jeans and Dean reluctantly does the same. He doesn't trust these people, doesn't know if he believes them, but they haven't tried to hurt him yet and he doesn't know what else to do. 

"Say I believe you," Dean says. The dizzy spell is fading. "What the hell am I doing here, in the future?" 

"Ahh, well." Sam looks at the accountant guy for some reason. 

"I should check his timeline," Cas says. "See when we can send him back to." And with a light rustling sound he disappears. 

"Cas!" Older Dean yells, then swears, gripping his hair in his hands momentarily. "Stubborn idiot." 

"What-" Dean says, looking between Sam and older Dean. "What the fuck was that?" 

"Um, look, it's probably better if we don't tell you. Time travel is tricky. We don't want to screw up the timeline." 

"Let's just say, we don't want you here anymore than you want to be here, kid," older Dean says, an undercurrent of animosity running through his forced drawl. "Cas can get you back to wherever you were before you got pulled here, clean up your memory, and you get to go on living your life exactly as intended. Lucky you." 

There are layers there that Dean's not sure he wants to pry at. Sam shoots older Dean a look that is equal parts exasperation and concern. And it's that, more than anything else, that makes Dean's shoulders sag. 

"You're really Sam?" Dean asks, quieter than before. Maybe he should be more interested in his future self, but honestly he doesn't really want to look at him. It's too freaky. Sam freaks him out too, but it's also been years since Dean has seen his brother and his heart _aches_ for this version of him. He gets that it's not the Sammy he knows, but there's something there. Something that deep down told him the instant they locked eyes that this was his brother. 

Sam nods, giving him a tired little smile. "Yeah, it's me." 

"What the hell happened to you, man?" 

Sam laughs and runs a hand through his ridiculous hair. 

"Yeah, and what's with the hair, Rapunzel?" 

Older Dean elbows Sam in the side. "Told you. You, me, clippers." 

Sam shakes his head at both of them and his smile is a little more like Dean remembers. 

Before he can answer, or evade, there's the same rustling sound and Cas reappears in the room. 

Dean reaches for his gun automatically again but stops himself from drawing it. 

Cas' face is pale and drawn and he staggers as he tries to find his feet on the concrete floor. Older Dean rushes to catch him, one arm around him, his other hand pressing to his chest and Cas nearly falls into him. 

"Cas, you dumbass," older Dean mutters. "You could have gotten yourself killed. You don't have the juice to be jumping timelines." 

"Thank you for your assessment of my powers," Cas says dryly. "Next time I will ask for your opinion on nonlinear interdimensional geometry before becoming a dispersed wavelength of electromagnetic radiation." 

Cas rights himself, his fingers trailing across older Dean's wrist where his hand presses his chest. Older Dean drops his hands and takes a step back, but Dean doesn't miss how close that still leaves Cas in his personal space. 

Dean narrows his eyes. He doesn't _do_ touching with anyone other than Sammy, and chicks he's hoping to sleep with, and this guy is neither so why are their arms practically brushing? 

"Okay, snipe at each other later," Sam says as older Dean opens his mouth to retort. "Cas, what's the word?" 

Cas looks at Dean and his gaze is intense and curious. It feels like he's looking through Dean, but… It's like he's looking into Dean's soul without any trepidation, like he already knows Dean and knows exactly what he'll find there and none of it scares him. 

Cas looks at Dean like he's family or a best friend, like he's someone Cas loves. 

No one has ever looked at Dean like that. Maybe Sam, but certainly not recently. 

Dean finds he can't think of anything to say in response to those eyes so he just stares back, waiting for it to be over. 

"I can't take him back," Cas says finally. His voice is even more gravelly than older Dean's. "He's not missing from the timeline." 

"What? Shit. You think Crowley took him from a multiverse?" 

Cas shakes his head, finally tearing his gaze from Dean to level that intense look at older Dean. "No. He's definitely you. I don't know how Crowley did it, but…" 

"So, what, he's a carbon copy or something?" Older Dean sounds disgusted and Dean feels himself bristling. "What the hell are we supposed to do with him if we can't send him back?" 

"Maybe have Crowley re-fuse them?" Sam suggests, frowning. 

"Maybe," Cas says. "But I doubt that an uncloning spell would -" 

"Y'all get that I'm standing right here, don't you?" Dean interrupts. They all turn to look at him, Sam looking slightly guilty, Cas still curious, and Dean radiating anger. 

"Right. Sorry, Dean," Sam says. "This is weird for us too." 

"Are you going to tell me what's going on here?" 

Sam glances at Cas again. "Is it safe to tell him?" 

Cas shrugs. "I don't know. I suppose so. If we can't send him back, then it won't matter what he knows." 

"Whoa, hold on," older Dean says. "He's not just staying here." 

Sam's concerned exasperation is back. "What else do you suggest?" 

Older Dean scowls. "We summon Crowley back and -" 

"And hand over a copy of you to him? Really?" 

"Hey!" Dean interrupts their argument again. "I'm not just some copy of a person." 

"No, of course not, you're just a useless kid me," older Dean snaps. 

" _Dean_ ," Sam says sharply. 

"I'm not a kid," Dean snaps back. He's starting to think he might not like this warped version of himself at all. 

Older Dean breathes out a string of profanities and stalks out of the room, his shoulders tense. Sam starts to go after him, then stops, looking back at Dean with a pained expression before exchanging glances with Cas. Dean gets the impression that they are having a silent conversation, an entirely mental version of rock paper scissors they've played before for _Which one of us deals with him today?_

It kind of makes Dean feel a weird sort of affection towards them both. 

It's Cas who nods and moves past Sam to the open door. He glances back once at Dean, his eyes still intense on him, before he disappears, footsteps echoing down the hall. 

Sam sighs, running his hand through his ridiculous hair again. "Sorry about Dean - I mean, uh, the other Dean, you know. He's just freaked." 

"Yeah, no shit," Dean says. He feels better now that it's just him and Sam, even if it's not _his_ Sam. "He's not the only one. What happened to him? To me? Actually, no, scratch that. Where are we? And why the fuck am I here?" 

"Well," Sam draws the word out. "I suppose it doesn't matter if I tell you. Everything's going to take a long time to explain, but I'll do my best, okay?" Sam looks around and walks over to the stool in the middle of the devil's trap. He places the cup of tea on the floor and nods to the chair beside him. After a moment's hesitation, Dean joins him. 

"We're in Kansas, in an underground bunker that belonged to a secret society called The Men of Letters. They're basically nonexistent in the US now, but once they kept all the info on monsters. Uh, let's save the full story of how Dean and I found this place for another time, but, basically, dad's father was a member which means we're legacies. The place was abandoned and incredibly well-protected when we found it, so… we live here now. We're still on the road a lot, but… this is home. 

"As for why you're here? It's complicated but, uh." Sam shifts uncomfortably. "We asked someone unreliable for help and he said he had a solution. He didn't tell us what it was going to be before he brought you here, and I honestly have no idea how he did it." 

Dean ignores the second revelation in ten minutes about the grandparents he's gone his whole life without knowing anything about, ignores Sam casually mentioning that this place, this permanent fixture that might not be a normal house but is something more than four wheels or a motel room, is their _home._ That the Winchesters just have a home now. He files this away to freak out about later, ignores the strange and complicated feelings trying to make themselves known over it. "What am I supposed to be a solution for?" 

Sam's face is weary, like he's spent a lifetime not sleeping, a lifetime being chased by something. "Dean's cursed," he says after a long pause. "Got hit by something strong, something of demonic origin, we think, which is why we went to Crowley, the guy who brought you here. He's… let's just say he's something of an expert in demons. Anyway, in three weeks, at the next new moon, an ancient Greek marksman named Cerodicus is going to turn up with an arrow patterned to Dean's soul. So far, we've got nothing on how to stop it. But we didn't ask for this," he adds hastily. "We're not going to let either of you die. We'll just… we'll figure it out, we always do." 

Dean takes a deep breath. Figures. He's just some carbon copy sacrifice to save a self he doesn't even recognize. Sure. Why not? 

"Okay…" he says, drawing the word out slowly. "And do you guys play with time much, or?" 

Sam's laugh is more bitter than anything. "We try not to. It's more complicated than it's worth, trust me." 

Dean has too many questions and every partial answer Sam gives him just adds more to the pile. His head still hurts and none of this is helping. He sinks his face into his palms for a second, ignoring his dad's voice in his head telling him never to take his eyes off the enemy. 

Dean believes this is Sam. There's just something about him, beneath all the crap he's been through, that is so innately Dean's little brother. 

"So okay," Dean says into the darkness of his palms. "It's 2020 you said? Jesus, that's not even a real year. You've got to be, what?" Dean does the mental math. "Thirty-seven? And I'm… forty-one?" 

"Yep. Crazy, right?" 

Dean scrubs his hands over his face and makes himself sit up, looking at Sam again and trying not to marvel about what all of this means. 

"You're telling me that I live to be _forty?_ " Dean says. His voice cracks a little. "Dude, I'm practically an old man." 

Sam is smiling at him, a little sadly, maybe, but like he's glad to be with Dean too. It's all too fucking weird. 

"Oh you are definitely an old man," Sam says. "Grumpy and semi-alcoholic and stubborn as ever. If we had a lawn you would be yelling at kids to get off it." 

Dean lets himself smile a little. He'll take semi-alcoholic any day. "Sounds like Bobby." 

The look on Sam's face reminds Dean of a question he should have already asked, a question that he's pretty sure he knows the answer to. He looks at the floor, at the lines of the devil's trap beneath his feet. 

"Is dad…?"

Sam's silence is answer enough. Dean swallows, closes his eyes. 

"And Bobby?" 

Again, the silence answers for Sam. 

Dean breathes out long and low. "Okay," he says. He doesn't even know what he's feeling. Hunters don't live long, and John and Bobby were already practically geriatric in hunter years. But both of them gone… "Okay. When?" 

"I'm sorry," Sam says. "I know it's a lot to handle all at once. It's…" he trails off. "Dad died about a year from where you were, back in 2006." 

Dean's not going to cry. That's his future and this Sam's distant past. It's a grief out of time. He's not going to cry, not when dad is still alive to him and long dead to Sam. "How'd it happen? Was it the thing that killed mom?" 

Sam doesn't answer for a moment. "Yeah, in a manner of speaking, it was." 

"Did he take the bastard down with him?" Dean turns his face away and rubs his nose before he makes himself look back at Sam. Sam is staring off into the distance, frowning faintly. 

"No, not exactly. But we did get him, Dean. The demon who killed mom, his name was Azazel. About a year after dad's death, you're the one who kills him." 

Dean doesn't know what to say to that. He sits stock still, letting it sink in. His whole life, his only purpose, his only _use_ , has been hunting, pulled into his father's obsession to find the monster that murdered their mother and ended Dean's childhood. 

In the last few years, Dean has quietly been letting himself suspect that they'd never find the thing that did it. He was kind of okay with that, as long as it meant that his dad didn't die doing something stupid, as long he didn't leave Dean on his own with this weight on his shoulders. But apparently, that's exactly what happened. 

It doesn't make sense to Dean. He knows that his dad is a better hunter than him. He'll never measure up to John. So how the hell could he kill something that John couldn't? 

"But dad… How exactly did he die? I mean, how the hell did we get to something that dad couldn't?" 

Sam's pauses are filled with unsaid things that Dean can't guess at. He hates that, hates that there are things that he doesn't know about this Sam, that they haven't shared. 

"Dad died saving you, Dean. It was… he sacrificed himself to keep you alive." 

There is nothing Dean can say to that except "Why?" Dean hears his own voice breaking. "Why would he do that? I'm not… he can't have…" 

"Because he loved you," Sam says firmly - Sam, who had run away from dad more than once, who had yelled at Dean that he was a coward to stay, who'd accused him of being nothing more than a whipping boy and their father of being a shell of obsessed grief, who'd almost seemed to hate John from the moment he'd hit puberty. "He loved both of us. I know he was crap at showing it, and it took me a long time to understand, but he did. I'm sorry. You deserve his apology from him, not me, but just know… just know that dad wished he could fix things, Dean. He never did, and I don't think he could have, even if he'd lived, but for what it's worth, he wanted to." 

Dean picks at the threads of his jeans, overwhelmed and unprepared to deal with any of this emotional whiplash. "He didn't have anything to apologize for," Dean says gruffly. "The man was a damn hero." 

Sam's little sigh is pained. "Okay. I don't really… Maybe now's not the time to get into that. Let's talk about it later, when we've got you caught up, yeah?" 

"And Bobby?" Dean reminds him, letting the topic of their dad go with some relief. Things between John Winchester and his oldest son have been… strained, back in Dean's timeline. Things were bad after Sam left them for college, and pretty soon Dean and his dad were barely hunting together, mostly meeting up every few weeks so John could pass on orders and hand off jobs to him. 

"Bobby…" Sam shakes his head like he's trying to clear it. "God, I think it was eight years ago. He… he took a bullet during a job. Didn't make it. He, uh, he kind of stuck around for awhile as a ghost though, haunting us." 

" _What?"_ Dean stares at Sam's faint amusement. Every expression on this man's face is complicated, nuanced in ways he doesn't fully understand. "How could you let him just hang around as a ghost?" 

"It was Bobby." Sam shrugs, like this explains everything. And, thinking about the stubborn old drunk, it kind of does. "And we missed him. I still miss him, all the time." 

"Yeah." Dean's having a hard time swallowing again. Bobby has always been there, even when John wasn't. The idea that if he drove to Sioux Falls, Bobby wouldn't be there at Singer Salvage Yard is impossible to internalize. 

"Well. What about you?" Dean asks, forcibly changing the subject. 

Sam raises his eyebrows. "What about me?" 

"I mean, you're here in Kansas with me, future me, obviously hunting. I get it's been a long time for you, but you and me, we ain't exactly talking at the moment. You're supposed to be at Stanford, becoming some fancy lawyer or something and forgetting all about us." 

Something painful flickers across Sam's face again and Dean feels bad for his glib words, his big brother instinct kicking in again even though this Sammy is eleven years older than him. 

"I never forgot about you," Sam says quietly to the floor. "Never. I thought about you all the time at Stanford. Thought about calling you pretty much every day the first year. Look, Dean, you and me, we've had years to work through this, but I want you to know that I'm sorry for leaving the way I did. I was young and angry at the world, and I needed… I needed time and space to become less hot-headed. I needed to get away from dad for a little while. But it was never about leaving you, and I'm sorry that we lost contact for those years. That was never how I meant for things to go. I missed you so much, I just got too stubborn." 

Christ. 

They do not do this. Dean and Sam, they don't _talk_ about their feelings like this, not really. Not when it's about each other, at least. Dean thinks, around the pang in his stomach and burn in his eyes, that Sammy must become a full on sap with age. 

Sam graciously pretends not to notice that Dean has to wipe his eyes, so Dean socks him roughly on the shoulder just to restore some kind of balance. 

"Hey, I missed you too, bitch. Sorry I was stubborn too." 

Sam smiles. "Jerk." 

At least something is right with this world. 

"So do you want to see the bunker? Let me give you a tour. I can try to answer your questions while I show you around and maybe Cas'll have talked Dean - other Dean - off the ledge by dinner." 

Dean gets up and follows Sam out into a windowless hallway. It looks like a military base or something and it's kind of really cool. "What the hell is your Dean's problem, anyway? If he's me, then what the fuck does he think I'm going to do?" 

Dean notices Sam's hesitation as he leads him up the hallway, just a step ahead with his freakishly long legs. 

"Don't be too hard on him. He's just… I think it freaks him out to be reminded of who he was and everything that he's lost since he was you. He's been through a lot. I should let him tell you, but… yeah. We've both been through it, you know?" 

That much is obvious. Dean is a little afraid to ask what it is that's made both of them look like they've lived through the end of the world. Because hell, maybe they have. 

"This is my room, by the way, if you need to find me later. Dean's room is that one, Cas is down the hall." Sam jerks his thumb at the three doors in turn. 

Dean raises his eyebrows. "Wait, this Cas guy lives here too? Who is he, anyway? Or I guess, what is he?" 

Sam laughs as he leads Dean up a flight of stairs. "Oh man. I don't know where to start unpacking that. Yeah, Cas lives with us. Most of the time, anyway. He's, uh, a friend. Our best friend, honestly. And I'll tell you what he is, but you're not going to believe me." 

"Half an hour ago I didn't believe in time travel, so try me." 

They come up the stairs into a huge living room with hardwood floors and furniture that looks like it's been set up for researching. Books and newspapers are scattered across various surfaces, Manila folders stacked on coffee tables and dusty volumes left piled in an armchair. The living room opens out into the dining room/kitchen area and Dean feels a stab of jealousy. He never really gets to cook in a full kitchen, not one that's actually working and properly stocked and isn't just a toaster and a hotplate. He wonders furtively if he'll be here long enough to convince Sam to let him make a meal. This might not be _his_ Sammy, but the engrained need to provide for his little brother is strong. 

"Cas - Castiel - is an angel." 

Dean stops coveting the kitchen and turns to glare at Sam. "You're pulling my leg." 

Sam shrugs, spreading his arms wide. "I said you wouldn't believe me." 

Dean narrows his eyes and tries to spot any of his brother's tells. Either Sammy developed an incredible poker face in the last decade and a half, or he's telling the truth. 

"Angel, like, _angels?_ Like, fluffy wings and a halo? Angels like there's a God and a heaven and a divine plan?" 

"Uh…" it's another pause full of the unspoken. "God and the divine plan is a long story. But yeah, basically." 

"You're fucking kidding me." 

"Afraid not." 

"And an angel just lives here? As our friend? As like a roommate?" 

Sam looks distinctly uncomfortable. He ushers Dean toward the black metal stairs that lead up to another row of doors. "Let me show you the library. But yeah. Pretty much." 

The library is huge. Even Dean, who was never as into books as Sam, is impressed. Plus these volumes look seriously old, more like Bobby's collection than anything you'd find in a public library, which Dean is guessing means they have some pretty rare lore on their hands. He whistles. 

"Damn, Sammy, speaking of Heaven, this must be yours." 

Sam shuts the doors behind them and walks over to one of the tables in the middle of the room, running his hand along the couple of books left out there. "It's been useful, for sure." 

"Seriously, Sam, what's an angel doing slumming it in a hunter's bunker in Kansas? Shouldn't he be, I don't know, out dispensing the wrath of God or making miracles?" 

"Probably. Cas doesn't really do that anymore, though. He's not exactly on the best of terms with Heaven." 

Everything Dean thinks he's getting a grip on the situation, he ends up staring at Sam in another level of disbelief. 

"Are you trying to tell me we're, like, harboring a fugitive from God or something?" 

Sam laughs. "No. Not really. Pretty sure God knows exactly where we all are." The way Sam says this is slightly bitter and it feels personal. "Anyway," he goes on, before Dean can ask about that can of worms. "Cas isn't the only other person living here. There's this kid - uh, this guy, Jack. He's technically close to your age. I think you'll like him. He's out of town on a job at the moment, but he'll be back in a few days." 

"And who exactly is Jack?" It's been so long since Dean felt like he had anyone. All he's had the last three years has been the Impala, the open road, and hook-ups in crappy motels or the back of his car. 

It's an odd feeling, to be jealous of something he supposedly gets to have in the future, but Dean doesn't know how long he might be sticking around to enjoy this weird Full-House scenario or if anyone but Sam will actually give him the time of day here. 

"Jack is… he's kind of our kid. It's another very long story, but, basically, yeah, he's our kid - technically he's been alive for three years, but he's got the body of a twenty-six-year-old and the mentality of maybe, like, sixteen. Do you know what nephilim are?" 

Dean shakes his head, dumbstruck that he didn't think to ask some very basic questions here right off the bat. He lets Sam explain first. 

"They're the child of an angel and a human. Very rare, very frowned upon by Heaven. Jack was born three years ago, and nephilim grow up quick in some ways, but we've kind of been raising him in other ways." 

"But… is he… I mean, you say he's our kid, but whose kid is he, really?" 

"Biologically? Not any of ours. I guess Cas is more of a dad to him than you or me, but we're all family." Sam says the word ferociously, and Dean knows that no matter what else may have changed, Sam still has the same understanding of what family means. Dean's just going to try and take his word for it that this ragtag couple of supernatural beings come to mean something to him. 

"I gotta know, are there any other kids? I mean, have you or I had…?" 

Sam laughs. "Oh God, no. No, man, you're safe." 

Dean doesn't know if he's relieved or not. Secretly, he's always kind of wanted kids. But he also can't imagine raising a kid with the way he lives, not even if he had a home base like this. He doesn't want to raise a kid like he was raised, for all he loves his dad. 

"What about girls, Sammy? You hitched yet?" 

Watching Sam get flustered is always fun. That hasn't changed either. "No, I… I mean, there's a girl, maybe. We haven't… I don't know. It's not…" Sam stops waving his giant hands around and shoves them into his jacket pockets. "No, I'm definitely not hitched. Hopefully you'll get to meet Eileen, she's great, she's a hunter too, but… we're just testing the waters." 

Dean grins at him, enjoying the fact that he can still tease this mammoth of a man. "I'll bet," he says. "And me? I'll bet crabby future Dean is still a bachelor." 

Sam gets that same distinctively uncomfortable look on his face that he had earlier. 

"What? Am I not? Do you not like her or something? Shit." Dean thinks about the deep lines and tragedy etched into his future self's face. "Am I, like, a widower?" 

"No, it's nothing like that." Sam's hesitant, shifty tone isn't exactly reassuring. "It's nothing bad, it's just… complicated." 

"Okay…" 

Sam searches his face, and Dean doesn't have a clue what he's looking for, so he just raises his eyebrows at him and crosses his arms, waiting. 

"I probably shouldn't tell you," Sam says finally. "But I'm going to, because I don't want you to freak out if you realize it on your own, okay? And Dean should be the one to tell you, but if you ask him about it, he _is_ going to freak out, and I just don't want either of you to get screwed up over it. I don't want Dean - the other Dean, sorry - to ruin things for himself by panicking or doing something stupid when he's in this headspace over you being here already." 

"Dude, what are you even talking about?" Dean is starting to get a little freaked out just from Sam's tone. He can't imagine what's got Sam this keyed up over some sort of relationship or whatever is going on with older Dean. Maybe he's turned into a nymphomaniac. Or maybe his dick has been fucking cursed. Or… 

Sam takes a deep breath. "Okay. Look. Don't freak out, but you and Cas are kind of… you know." 

It takes a second for the icy feeling to start dripping down Dean's spine, but then it's running its full course in record time, spilling down into his stomach too. 

Dean folds his arms even more tightly into himself. 

"No," he says, and his voice is icy too. "I don't know. What the fuck are you trying to say?" 

"Dean, it's… it's a different time in 2020. Marriage equality is legal now, there's a lesbian coach in the NFL, and pretty much no one except super conservative religious douchebags gives a crap about sexual orientation. So it's -" 

"I'm not gay," Dean says, and even he can hear the defensive anger in his voice. 

"Okay," Sam says, holding up his hands placatingly again. His concerned exasperation is back and Dean forgot how annoying it was when it was aimed at him. "But it would be fine if you were. Or bi or pan, or whatever." 

"What the hell is pan?" Dean asks scathingly, just to give himself some time. 

"Pansexual. It's - you know what? Nevermind, it's not important. The point is that literally no one cares, except you - I mean, future you. The other Dean. God this is still weird. I'm just saying, I'm sorry I'm bringing it up, I know you're not ready to talk about it and we don't have to. Just. Try not to have a crisis over it in front of Dean? Please." 

Dean is definitely having a crisis over it right fucking now. 

There are a lot of ways that Dean has failed his family. He knows he's never been good enough for John - not tough enough, not smart enough, not macho enough. And he knows he wasn't enough for Sam either, not enough for him to stay. He was always supposed to take care of Sam, and he'd messed that up pretty majorly more than once. He'd let him get hurt or let him run off or let them run out of food. And Dean had tried - he'd really tried so hard all his life to do right by his family, but he could never seem to stop fucking up in all these simple, obvious ways. 

Dean has fucked up in other ways too, but he's locked his secrets up and kept himself off the edge with the knowledge that at least no one had to know about those failures. They couldn't hurt anyone but him if no one knew. 

So Sam is definitely not supposed to be looking at him with his head slightly cocked to one side, worry in his big ol' puppy-dog eyes, casually speaking into existence something that Dean has already decided he will take with him to the grave. 

Dean isn't even gay. He definitely likes girls, no question there, no sir. He could be bi, maybe, but he's never even slept with a guy. 

Well. 

Not by choice anyway. 

_Well._

He's never had sex with a guy because he wanted to, and not because he had to. Dean views his body as a resource, and an expendable one at that. He learned it early on, in the broken bones and bruises and hasty stitches done with dental floss in motel bathrooms with no anesthesia. His body is more about being something he can use than it is about being a part of his actual sense of self, of personhood. His body has been a commodity for as long as he's been able to swing a knife or shoot a gun. So when he figured out he could use it to make money, to put food on the table for him and Sam, of course he had. 

But it's not like he does that anymore. It's not like he wanted to do it in the first place, anymore than he wants to get thrown into things in a fight. 

Dean does what he has to in order to survive or to take care of his family. That's it. What he wants, especially what his body wants, doesn't really factor into the equation. 

"Why would other Dean freak out if you're saying him and Cas are already together?" Dean finally asks the floor. He's still got his arms crossed about as tight as they'll go. 

Sam sighs. "Because he hasn't actually talked to me about it yet. He knows that I know, and I know that he knows that I know - everyone knows everything. He's just not ready to say it. Which is ridiculous, because he and Cas have been hooking up for years now, and honestly most of our friends are queer, so it's not like he doesn't know I'd be okay with it. To be honest, I think he hasn't told me because he's scared to admit it to himself." 

"If he hasn't told you, maybe you're just reading it wrong," Dean says stubbornly. Truth be told, he wouldn't bet on that. Not after seeing the way older Dean rushed to catch Cas, the way their hands had lingered over each other in just those small moments. The way Cas had looked at both Deans so intensely. 

"Maybe," Sam says, shrugging. "Maybe they bicker like an old married couple because they're just best friends. Maybe when they fight the tension is so thick you could cut it with a knife because they're both just that intense. Maybe Cas sneaks out of his room some mornings because they're up all night talking. Maybe Dean makes Led Zeppelin mix-tapes for all his buddies." 

Dean keeps his eyes locked on the floor, but he lets his arms drop. "He made him a Zeppelin tape?" 

Neither of them has to say it. It's one of the few stories John ever told them about Mary, about how she had asked him out with a mix-tape of Led Zeppelin songs and that was when John knew she was The One.

The boys never had much of their mother, every memory and story like this was safeguarded. Dean knows that it means something bigger than he can really understand that his older self would make this gesture. He and Cas aren't just hooking up, which would be one thing. 

"Am I… Is he in love with him?" 

Sam is quiet for long enough that Dean makes himself look up. Sam's sadness is as complicated as any of his other expressions. It's part sympathy, part worry, part something like grief. 

"I hope so, Dean. I really do. It's what they both deserve." 

Dean scrubs a hand over his face, pulling the threads of his composure back into his iron grip. "Tell you what, Sammy, I need a damn drink. You got any alcohol in this bunker?" 

Older Dean unsurprisingly keeps a well-stocked liquor cabinet - at least in the sense that it is full of cheap whiskey. There's beer in the fridge too, and Dean shoots his first glass of whiskey, pours himself another and takes a beer with him to the long dining room table. Sam grabs a beer too, but there's still too much concern in his eyes as he watches Dean drink. 

Dean for his part is feeling too many conflicting emotions to process. Shock, grief, jealousy, anger, confusion, fear, relief - they're all in there swirling around and the only way Dean knows how to deal with any of them is by drowning them in alcohol. 

"Hey, tell me something, did Blink-182 ever get back together?" Dean asks. He wants to establish the conversation far away from where they left it in the library, and Sam seems perfectly willing to oblige. 

"Briefly, yeah, in 2009. They put out a new album, but don't worry, you hate it. I was surprised, honestly, I'd have put odds on them killing each other before they ever worked together again." 

"Yeah, well, strange reunions do happen." Dean flashes a grin at his brother. "Man, so I've got fifteen years of music and movies to catch up on, huh?" 

"They made some Star Wars sequels." 

"Shut up." Dean's eyes light up, and he doesn't care that he's too old to geek out about this. "Really? Tell me they're not crap." 

"I haven't seen them all, but Dean liked everything except the last in the trilogy. Apparently they jumped the shark on that one." 

"Ah, man. Still… that's awesome. What else?" 

"Uh, Fallout Boy broke up and got back together." Sam knows the band is one of Dean's guilty pleasures so he doesn't even try to belittle it. "It's kind of hard to think what you'd be interested in… Oh, Doctor Sexy is in it's like fifteenth season or something." 

Dean scowls at his brother's amusement. "Hey. Don't make fun of my medical dramas, you know there's never anything good on when we're on the road." 

"I'm just saying, fifteen seasons of anything is too many seasons." 

Dean would have argued that Doctor Sexy could never get old, not with its perfectly constructed format of hot doctor drama and sex, but Cas chooses that moment to walk into the kitchen and Dean finds himself entirely unwilling to talk about hot doctor sex in front of the guy. 

If Dean was the type of guy to blush, he's pretty sure he'd be red all over, but as it is he just feels the flush of warmth in his chest and throws back the last of his whiskey. Sam looks nervously between them before focusing on Cas. 

"How's he doing?" 

Cas shrugs, the folds of his ridiculous trench coat rustling in the stillness of the room. Dean has already figured out that the walls seem at least partially sound-proof. 

"About how you'd expect. He's down at the range. I don't imagine he'll be up any time soon." 

"Wait a sec," Dean says before Sam can respond. "You guys have a gun range? Like, here, in the bunker?" 

"Yep," Sam says, seeming to smile in spite of himself at Dean's disbelief and excitement. "Pretty cool, right?" 

"Sammy, if you guys want to trade in for a less grumpy Dean, I promise I'll be a saint." 

Sam shakes his head. "He'll grow on you, I swear. But you're welcome to use the range if you want. Maybe, uh, give other Dean a little time to blow off some steam first." 

Cas is standing at the far end of the table, staring at Dean again with his head cocked slightly to the side. 

Honestly, Dean doesn't know if he's attracted to the guy or not. All that eye contact is intense, and he's not sure if he likes it, even if the attention feels kind of nice. It isn't the hungry kind of look Dean is used to from older men - even if Cas fits the usual demographic of Dean's past clientele. Those looks always made Dean feel like he was being undressed and objectified. That hunger was about his body being on display. 

There is something hungry in Cas' gaze, but his eyes aren't trying to peel off Dean's clothes. They're going straight through him instead, like he wants to confirm that he knows Dean. Like he left a handprint on his Dean's soul and he wants to know if Dean can feel it too. It's weird and personal and Dean just doesn't know what to do with it. 

"Cas," he says, aiming for a casual drawl and lifting his empty whiskey glass. "You wanna drill me with your eyes like that, bring a guy a drink first." 

Cas, it turns out, is almost as fun to fluster as Sam. A pair of nerds, the two of them. Cas immediately drops his eyes and mutters "My apologies." He nearly trips over his own feet going towards the liquor cabinet. 

Sam shoots Dean a warning look from across the table. 

"What?" Dean says innocently, taking a drink of his own beer. The whiskey is just starting to calm him down enough that the thought that this might be kind of fun has actually entered his head. When in Rome, right? "I didn't want to get up." 

"Please just… be nice," Sam says in a low voice.

"I'm always nice, Sammy." 

Sam rolls his eyes and Dean feels such a rush of fondness for his brother. He'd missed him so much. It had nearly killed him when Sam walked out. It had just about ripped his heart out of his chest. But here they are, living together, hunting together, brothers again. 

That's all Dean wants, he realizes. He just wants Sam back. If he ever does get back to his timeline or whatever, he'll do whatever it takes to get Sam back in his life. And if he stays here… if he stays, he will just have to find a way to make himself indispensable, to convince this Sam that he's not just a carbon copy of the Dean he used to know. He can do that, he thinks. Sam already looks at him like he cares about him - which, honestly, is weird enough. Not that Sam hasn't always cared about Dean, it's just… Dean was the big brother. Looking out for Sammy was his job. 

Cas reappears with the half-empty bottle of Jameson's, brings it over to Dean, and actually pours it for him like he's the waitstaff. 

"Thanks," Dean says, offering him his most rakish smile. He stops himself from adding a sarcastic "sweetheart", but only for Sam's sake. 

"You're welcome," Cas says, formal and unironic. He takes a seat a couple chairs down from Dean and, to Dean's surprise, pours a glass of whiskey for himself. 

"Angels drink alcohol?" Dean can't help himself from asking. 

"Imbibing outside of communion is generally frowned upon," Cas says, nevertheless sipping from his glass. He takes it with a straight face, no reaction to the sting at all. "But it takes much more than a bottle of whiskey to have much of an effect on me. Besides which, I have an impressive list of infractions against me already, so no reason not to drink." 

"Yeah? What kind of infractions?" 

Cas looks at Dean and raises an eyebrow. "Would you like the list alphabetically, chronologically, or in order of severity?" 

Dean's mouth quirks up involuntarily. Cas' deadpan sardonic humor is something he can understand. 

"To damnation," Dean says, raising his glass. 

Cas returns the cheers, but Dean doesn't miss the look he casts at Sam or the way his brother's face crumples momentarily. 

Dean will ask what it means, he will, but he doesn't know how much more information he can take right now. So he shoots his third glass of whiskey back and finishes his beer before standing up. 

"What time is it?" Dean has already checked his own watch and it's broken. Figures. 

Sam pulls a rectangular something out of his jeans pocket. "Half past six, why?" 

"Because I'm gonna cook you dinner. What the hell is that?" 

Sam looks confused for a moment before he realizes Dean is gesturing at the rectangle in his hand. "Oh. It's my phone. Right, you're still probably using a flip phone, huh?" 

Dean reaches into his pocket before he realizes he must have left his phones - all of them - in the Impala back in 2005. 

"Here, let me show you." 

Dean comes around and leans over Sam's shoulder. Somehow, after everything, this Sam still manages to smell like his brother. It's weirdly comforting. 

The phone, however, is not. 

"What the fuck," Dean says. 

Sam laughs. "Yeah. It's basically a mini computer in your pocket. You can make calls and send texts." Sam points to two of the nonsensical icons on his screen. "But you can also use the internet, Google, email, all of it." 

Dean whistles. "Time travel and pocket computers. This is some Star Trek shit. I want one." 

"We'll get you one. Kind of necessary these days. Here, you can take mine for now. You'll just have to answer it if anyone calls, could be a case." 

"Use mine instead," Cas offers. He takes out a similar phone and slides it across the table, offering them both a little shrug. "I barely know how to use it anyway. The only person likely to call me is Jack, and he's out of range for a couple more days." 

Dean drops Sam's phone and picks up Cas' instead. When he clicks it on there's a background of animated bees. "Thanks, Cas. Uh. Bees?" 

Sam snorts into his arm and Cas looks faintly pained. 

"Dean put that on there and I don't know how to change it." 

Dean grins, even though he doesn't fully get it. "Okay, sure. Hey, I think it needs a password." 

Cas looks suddenly flustered again. He gets up and clears the glasses and the mostly empty bottle of whiskey into his hands before he says "It's 0-1-2-4." 

Dean doesn't understand Cas' hasty retreat into the kitchen or Sam's cough until he types the numbers in and realizes that it's his own birthday. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content Warnings: internalized homophobia, implied past sexual abuse (non-explicit), referenced past sex work (non-explicit, implied underage), reference to canon-typical violence


	2. Sing in the reaches

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Um, wow, thanks, y'all! I think that's the most comments/responses I've had to the first chapter of anything in the first day. I was planning to wait to post this just for pacing since I can't promise I'll always update this quickly, but I already had this chapter written, so here you go! In appreciation for your enthusiasm. 
> 
> An indulgent note: The playlist for this fic is just the songs "My Ghost" by The Shondes, and "Pray to God" by Calvin Harris/HAIM played on repeat, if you're interested in that sort of thing. 
> 
> Content warnings in end notes.

One minute, Dean Winchester is forty-one years old, living secure in the knowledge that whatever other crap he has to face on a daily basis, at least he doesn't have to look his actual and literal past in the eye every day. And then this happens. 

Dean is going to _kill_ Crowley. 

He's willing to bet money that Crowley did this on purpose, knowing just how much it would screw with Dean's head. Crowley probably did it just to watch them all squirm, asking themselves which Dean is going to hop into the proverbial fire. 

Dean could barely look at his younger self. Young Dean was so lithe and unbroken, his eyes full of vibrant vitality. Not that he hadn't seen some shit by the time he got to that age, Dean has to remind himself, but he hadn't known anything yet. Dad and Sam were still alive, Dean didn't even believe in God or angels, had never been to hell. 

Dean ditched Cas to moodily shoot at targets for awhile, but his skin itched just knowing the other Dean was in the same building. So he snuck out to the garage and now he's driving the Impala in the unlit night of backwoods Kansas, black asphalt, black trees, and the deepening purple-blue of the sky. His phone stopped ringing an hour ago and now it's just him and Metallica. The music is soothing. So is the road. 

Dean doesn't want to have to think about any of it, about anything else. 

He was so _young._

It's one of the many things freaking him out about this whole situation. Dean has never thought of himself as a child, never was one, really, but he looks at this twenty-six-year-old man and he sees Jack. He sees some last shreds of innocence. 

Dean knows that life wasn't exactly easy back then either, sure, but young Dean isn't all gutted and hollowed out yet. 

There's such a profound sense of loss in Dean's chest and he can't stand it - he cannot look at that emptiness or touch it because if he does, it will swallow him whole. 

Dean refocuses on his anger, like he always does, grounds himself in, lets himself hate this other version of himself for everything he doesn't know yet. Christ, young Dean hasn't even lost dad or Bobby, hasn't sacrificed himself for Sam, hasn't watched Cas die over and over. Young Dean isn't even speaking to Sam. He's just fucking around on his own, tailing pathetically in John's footsteps, trying to convince his dad that he's worth having around… 

Dean leans his foot down on the gas, lets the Impala speed up until she's flying through the dark, her headlights only just illuminating the curves in the road in time to take turns sharp enough that she feels like she might tip over. Dean doesn't worry about tickets, not out here, not this late at night. True, getting pulled over for speeding is the second-to-last thing he needs right now, but the _last_ thing he needs is to be thinking about the fresh sting of twenty-six-year-old Dean's wounds. 

The speed and the music can't quite drown out his thoughts though as he goes zipping down the road. 

Young Dean hasn't rebuilt the Impala from scratch yet. He hasn't spent a year raising a kid he abandons. He hasn't ever really known mom. He hasn't lost her again. He hasn't taken on the Mark of Cain. Hasn't become a demon. Hasn't been responsible for the end of the world. Hell, young Dean hasn't even seen the Grand Canyon or had sex with another man yet. 

Dean grinds his teeth down hard because that, too, makes him want to run the car off the road rather than think about it. Dean's been through so much other shit in the intervening years, he doesn't have time for young Dean's fucking mundane trauma. So daddy and Sammy didn't love him enough, so his mom is dead, so he's been some sort of caregiver to his brother and faux replacement partner to his father since he was four, so people and monsters alike have banged him up since he was a kid, so fucking what? Dean wants to box his younger self's ears and tell him to man the fuck up, get over it, get tougher quick, because it gets a hell of a lot worse than his abandonment issues. 

The worst part might not even be young Dean himself. 

Sam's face - all that gentle fondness and recognition had felt like a slap. And Cas… 

Dean can't stand the idea of young Dean being anywhere near Cas. At least Sam already knew him back then, more or less. At least they're on even footing in that Dean knew young Sam too. But Cas has only known Dean post-hell, and Dean's comfortable with that. He doesn't want Cas to see how soft he was before, either because it will reinforce just how fucking broken Dean is now, or because maybe Cas will want that kind of softness. And Dean… he just doesn't have that in him anymore. He's known for awhile now that he's scraping the bottom of the fucking barrel on what he has to offer the world. Not that he was ever good for much, but he used to be able to fake it, at least. He could pull up a smile for a pretty girl at a bar that didn't feel like a bold-faced lie. He could make sense of his own choices. He could look at his brother, at least, and see a tomorrow with him. Even if he couldn't see the light at the end of this ugly-ass tunnel, he always let Sam's belief in it be enough for both of them. If he just had Sam, he could make it through another day. 

Lately though… well. 

Dean thinks Eileen kicks ass, and he wants Sam to be happy, and he knows this could really be something between the two of them, but lately Dean is starting to wonder if Sam is ever going to be able to have a future with anyone if Dean is still around. No matter what Chuck's fans say, there is nothing erotic about the brothers' codependency, but it is there. Dean's not totally convinced it's a bad thing - isn't it the point, to have someone in your life that you would die for? - but he also kind of hates himself for being the thing that is most in the way of Sam's happiness. He's clung to that in the past, yeah, but Dean is tired. He's just tired. Tired of fighting, tired of losing people, tired of grief. He's tired of the guilt he feels every time he catches a glimpse of Sam's own well of sadness. 

Dean can't imagine himself without Sam, and he's pretty sure at this point that Sam doesn't know who he'd be without Dean. And the bitter truth of that is that as long as Sam keeps putting Dean first, he's never going to take things further with Eileen, or with anyone. 

Dean wasn't planning on dying. But he's sure not going to let some kid die for him either, even if he hates who he was at that age. And maybe, if Dean takes an arrow to the chest in three weeks and young Dean doesn't go up in smoke or something, maybe he and Sam can have a healthier run at things. Maybe Sam can figure out who he is without Dean, without entirely losing his brother. 

And Cas… 

Even in his most martyred fantasies, Dean's not ready to think about Cas and young Dean. He just can't. 

_And if you don't die?_ Dean's brain asks stubbornly, his inner voice insistent and uninhibited by the top-volume Metallica or reckless driving. _If Sammy moves on, moves out, gets hitched?_

Dean wanted kids of his own once. He'd liked Lisa a lot, of course, maybe even loved her, but half of loving Lisa was in being something like a dad again. When he'd moved in with them, he'd just lost Sam, and spending time with Ben had hurt and healed him at the same time. He'd kept thinking how he'd do it right this time, how this time he wasn't just a four-year-old struggling to hold his baby brother. And then the thoughts of Sam would shut him down and he'd end up closing off Ben anyway. 

And then they'd gotten hurt because of him, and Dean just… he can't. He fucked up so much with Sam, and he failed Ben, and if Jack wasn't such an agent of chaos himself, Dean would feel a damn sight guiltier about how he's handled this latest kid in his life. 

He can't. 

Dean thinks about a life with a shadowy house and wife and kids and all he feels is a numbed terror. He's not going to have that. He knows that now. 

Not so long ago, he wanted something else. To build something, cultivate something hopeful and deep with someone in a way he never really has before. He sat in a church confessional and told the priest that he wanted to experience _feelings._

The priest had waited a breath and then said, voice a kind rumble in the dark, dusty booth "You'll forgive me for saying it, son, but you sound lost. It sounds like the things that have given you purpose for a long time are no longer providing you with the same joy, the same fulfillment. You're looking for something more now, something else to fill that void. Is that right?" 

Dean had leaned his head back against the old wood paneling. "I don't think I can ever stop what I do, Padre. Not until it kills me. But sometimes I think… I want these things that I know I can't have. Things I'm not supposed to want, in ways I'm not supposed to want them. I don't… I don't know if I can have both, but I can't stop wanting it." 

"First Corinthians 12," the priest said without pause. Dean was pretty damn familiar with the Bible by this point - it would have been asinine not to be - but he couldn't pull up the passage before the priest started quoting it to him. 

"The eye cannot say to the hand, “I don’t need you!” And the head cannot say to the feet, “I don’t need you!” On the contrary, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and the parts that we think are less honorable we treat with special honor… But God has put the body together, giving greater honor to the parts that lacked it, so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other. If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it." 

The priest had sighed then, a little rustling coming from the other side of the screen as he shifted on the hard wooden seats. "What I hear in you is something I hear from many others. You're lost because you aren't honoring, or if you would prefer, perhaps acknowledging, all those parts of yourself. If you cannot allow yourself to feel these things that you so deeply crave, cannot build up love and trust, ask yourself if you truly consider them weaker, dispensable. Can you truly do what needs doing if you do not undertake it for love?" 

Maybe it was long ago, now that Dean thinks about it. 

Dean can't seem to feel much of anything these days. 

Dean skids around a corner without pressing on the brakes and feels the Impala wobble. He'd never actually flip his baby though. Not like this. 

He's running out of backroads to drive on. If he keeps it up at this rate he'll be back on a highway soon, and as much as he wants to run, that's not why he's out here. 

Dean is abruptly exhausted. He pops a U-turn in the middle of the empty road, slowing down just enough to keep him from spinning out of control and off into the wheat field to his right. He turns down the music and when the tape ends and the stereo spits it out, he doesn't rewind it or flip it over as he's been doing. He changes it over to Moby, which is his moping music lately, and all Cas' fault. 

Cas saw the track title _We Are All Made of Stars_ while he was flipping through Dean's vinyl collection one night and made Dean play it for him, even though Dean had been in the middle of an impressive music lesson on Pink Floyd. 

Cas had sat down next to Dean on the bed, glass of whiskey forgotten in his hand and he'd actually slowed down enough to _listen_. 

_People they come together_

_People they fall apart_

_No one can stop us now_

_'Cause we are all made of stars…_

"This is pleasant," Cas had said.

"Cas," Dean said, exasperated and amused by his derailed attempts to get Cas to appreciate classic rock. "I'm not saying there's not a time and a place for a little Moby, that's fine. But come on, man, you think this is better than _Another_ _Brick in the Wall_?" 

Cas frowned. "That was the one we just listened to with the ending bit shouting about pudding? I didn't attend a school, Dean." 

Dean had groaned and put his head in his hands. "I don't know why I bother," he muttered. 

_Efforts of lovers_

_Left in my mind_

_I sing in the reaches_

_We'll see what we find…_

Cas had turned to him, face crinkled in his usual faint confusion at anything so human as music and then he'd said simply "Oh." 

Cas leaned over Dean and put his drink on the bedside table next to Dean's empty glass. "Music is a means of expression, usually about what the artist is attempting to render, but its meaning is also registered in how it is encoded by the hearer. You were trying to share something about your own feelings in the music you care about. I'm sorry, we can return to the albums you picked out now." 

Dean had blinked, caught off guard by Cas putting his motives into words. He hadn't exactly been trying to share his emotions through music, but he'd been trying to explain why the music was important to him without actually having to say it. And that was something like expression. 

Dean had kissed Cas then, knocking them both over into the bed, and that was how Dean had ended up having sex to the album _18._

It plays in the car now and Dean drums his fingers restlessly on the steering wheel. Now that he's tired out he just wants to be back in his bed with a drink and maybe watch something stupid on his phone. He _could_ go bother Cas, but he's not exactly in the mood for sex and he's not at a level of emotional devastation to let himself want anything else from him, so no, just bed and alcohol and the incredible invention of a phone that doubles as a handheld TV. 

The first time with Cas had happened one rainy Tuesday night a few months before Dean spilled his guts in that church confessional. He hadn't been thinking about the unity of his being or honoring the different parts of himself or any religious, flowery crap like that. Honestly, Dean had known for awhile that this was going to happen, that he wanted it to happen, and he'd been antsy and keyed up about it for weeks once he'd accepted it. Of course he told himself it was just sex, just something to release this tension between them, just something to stop him from thinking about what he had become the last few months; first from the Mark, then as Crowley's mutt. Something to chase the taste of Crowley out of his mouth, to be honest, although he was never going to tell Cas that part. 

Dean had actually tried for three nights in a row to get Cas to catch on, but Dean was too amped up, and messed up, and nervous, and Cas was Cas - just benignly pleased with Dean's attention and absolutely fucking clueless to what Dean was trying to ask him. So on the third night, Dean had thrown back four shots of whiskey and basically taken a trust fall into Cas' arms.

Cas had caught his weight, of course, hands already trying to steady him as Dean looped his arms around his neck and mashed their mouths together. 

That was all it was at first, too. Not a kiss, exactly, just Dean's mouth pressing hard into Cas, whose lips were warm and pliant beneath him but unresponsive. Which was somewhat incongruent with Cas' hands tensing and grasping at Dean's hips, pulling him in closer instead of trying to set him back on his feet. 

Dean had broken off, still leaning his weight into Cas, and tried again, gentler. And again, Cas's hands tightened on him, face tilting slightly, but his mouth wouldn't return the pressure. 

Dean broke off again with a noise of frustration, dropping his hands to Cas' shoulders and glaring into his stunned expression. 

"Are you going to kiss me back or not?" Dean had demanded, halfway back into his shell of defensive anger already. 

Cas had blinked, looking not so much like he'd just had his best friend fall mouth-first into him as like he'd been hit by lightning inside on a bright summer's day. 

"I… but… we _were_ kissing?" Cas had said helplessly, shocked and confused and utterly out of his depth. 

"Cas, buddy." Dean couldn't quite keep the laughter out of his voice as he leaned his forehead against Cas'. "You're supposed to move your mouth too. C'mon, I know you know how to do this." 

"Well, but I don't… I didn't… Can we try again?" 

Dean hadn't expected anything about this to be funny, but he was still smiling into the next kiss. 

And there it was. 

Cas pressing back against him, wrapping his arms around him, breath hitching over their tongues, nails digging into Dean's clothes and pulling him closer. That was what Dean had been looking for. 

It had felt… honestly, it had felt like nothing would ever be the same after. That wasn't something Dean had let himself think about before he made the reckless decision to kiss his best friend, but, well, there they were, casually turning the world over in the bunker's living room. 

Dean had slid his hands up into Cas' perpetually windswept hair, and Cas had one hand up the back of his flannel before Dean decided that was enough of that. He'd stepped back, leaving Cas looking flushed and shaken, and grabbed him by the wrist. 

Cas had followed him willingly down the hall and into Dean's bedroom, willingly let himself be pushed back against the door and manhandled out of that stupid coat. He'd brought one hand up to cup Dean's cheek, kissing back with his own ferocity now, and Dean let himself get swept along with it, let his brain turn off and his body pursue the thing it wanted. 

"Dean," Cas had mumbled when Dean's mouth was at his neck, pushing away the white collar of his dress shirt. "Are you-" 

Dean had clapped a hand over his mouth, leveling his gaze at Cas' wide blue eyes. "No talking," Dean said. "Now or later. No talking about it. Those are the rules. Understood?" 

Slowly, Cas nodded, his own gaze intense as he appraised whatever he was seeing on Dean's face. Dean removed his hand and Cas kissed him again, sloppy and eager and it felt fucking nice to be _wanted._

The sex was good, but it was also a fiasco in its own way. 

Dean had told himself it was just sex, that he could handle sex with Cas, and he probably could have coped with it fine if he'd just closed his eyes the entire time. But it was _Cas_ laid out beneath him. Cas, who made too much eye contact in the best of times, with his intense stare cracked open as he looked up at Dean with something like wonder in his face. Cas, nodding trustingly up at him when Dean broke his own rule to ask if this was okay, looking at Dean like he'd give him anything if Dean just asked for it. Cas, refusing to break eye contact, even as his breath left him, as his hands tightened on Dean's shoulders, as Dean's name left his mouth in a moan that shot straight to the bottom of Dean's stomach. 

Dean hadn't counted on Cas looking like he was being completely unraveled by Dean, like being fucked was making him come completely undone, hair and eyes wild, head finally tipped back and voice broken as he mumbled half-comprehensible words into the skin of Dean's wrist braced in the mattress next to the pillow. 

Dean heard some of it, words like _beautiful_ and _gorgeous_ and _improbable_ and _need,_ and he let it go because he was barely keeping his own words in by then. 

He hadn't counted on the thing between them, realized finally in the joining of their bodies, in the sweat of their bare skin, in the taste of Cas chasing everything he'd ever done or been before this moment out of his head - he hadn't counted on it feeling like something sacred. 

But it did. It was. 

Cas looked at Dean like he was something holy, said his name like a litany. 

Dean had kept their eyes locked, biting his own lip to keep himself from saying the traitorous thing that his whole body wanted to pour over Cas, wanted to break over, wanted to confess. 

_I love you. I love you. I love you,_ he'd thought in his last three thrusts, finishing, spilling, coming unmade himself. He'd collapsed on top of Cas for a moment, Cas' hands coming up to pet his hair and run down his back, both of them breathing heavy into each other's skin. 

"Dean," Cas had whispered, his voice so full of that same undone wonder that Dean felt a stab of guilt that he'd made it impossible for Cas to voice his feelings. 

Dean had levered himself up and slid down Cas' body, Cas still unfinished and wanting. 

"Oh," Cas had said, sounding totally caught off guard when Dean's mouth was on him. "Oh, Dean… I… you don't have to…" 

Dean had pulled himself off just enough to shoot a glare up at him. "Cas, what about this makes you think that I don't _want_ to?" 

And that at least had shut Cas up for a little while, one hand in Dean's hair, too short for him to really pull, but giving a good try all the same. 

Dean hadn't counted on liking it when Cas' voice broke on his name again, actually enjoying the taste of him on his tongue, fingers pressed back up inside Cas to wring him out hard. 

Dean hadn't planned on letting Cas stay. He'd figured they'd fuck and then after an acceptable minimum, he'd kick Cas out so he could sleep. But he hadn't planned on Cas' face when Dean finished and crawled back up to lay next to him. 

Cas looked like he'd been broken by Dean. 

Dean told himself it was because of that that he let Cas pull him in, that he let them become tangled in each other's limbs, his face nuzzled into Cas' sweaty collarbone, Cas' face in his hair. 

Dean hadn't counted on Cas crying, and he told himself that was why he'd wrapped his arms tight around him, rubbed a hand up and down his spine, and eventually, when Cas had calmed down again, tossed a blanket over them, mess and all, and fallen asleep in Cas' warmth. 

And Dean definitely hadn't counted on waking up bleary eyed and still wrapped up in Cas' arms with the certain knowledge that Cas had spent the whole night watching Dean sleep. And he hadn't counted on that loose feeling not just in his limbs but in the warmth in his chest, a feeling that he'd eventually identified as _safety_ , because Dean couldn't have said when the last time he'd felt safe even was. If he'd ever felt safe in his whole fucking life since he was four years old. 

So Dean had done what he always did in the face of emotional vulnerability: He'd panicked. He'd wrenched himself out of that circle of comfort, told Cas gruffly that he was going to take a shower, and then avoided him for a week. 

Cas hadn't even seemed surprised by Dean's emotional whiplash, which had rankled. He hadn't tried to talk about it, hadn't tried to touch Dean. If his "Thank you," was too sincere, too full of other things, when Dean finally got himself together and handed Cas a cup of coffee one morning in one of his usual taciturn gestures, that was something Dean could ignore. 

It was frankly unfair how patient Cas was with him. 

How patient Cas still is, Dean thinks as he checks reflexively for any cars following him in the dark onto the road that leads up to the garage entrance. 

Anyone else in the entire universe, hell, the multiverse probably, wouldn't have put up with Dean's bullshit for this long. He knows that. He knows that he's completely unreasonable. 

As Dean pulls into the garage and parks his baby in her spot, creeping up the stairs and down the silent corridor to his room, he wonders if young Dean still knows how to be in love. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter Content Warnings: internalized homophobia, self-hatred, brief reference to past sex work, some dubious consent/coercion/emotional manipulation, brief reference to past emotional abuse


	3. Non timebo mala

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Is now a good time to mention that I write this primarily on my phone with no beta and very little editing? Anyway... Please enjoy the inconsistencies in my use of hyphens.
> 
> Content warnings in end notes

Twenty-six year-old Dean can't sleep. He thought he would, when Sam showed him to an empty bedroom and said goodnight, ruffling his hair in a fond gesture that surprised both of them. He was exhausted, definitely, but his head was just too full of spinning thoughts - of time travel, death, sex, and the broken look on his own future self's face. 

Eventually, Dean gives up and turns the bedside lamp on. He picks up Cas' phone from where he left it on the table and puts in his own birthday, thinking about how goddamn sappy these grown men are. 

He snoops. 

Dean is a professional snoop, afterall. If Cas really knows him, he can't be surprised if Dean goes through his shit. 

Not that there seems to be much in the way of personal info saved to Cas' phone. Dean has to fumble his way around, getting the hang of the "apps" for a while, but he's pretty sure Cas was telling the truth when he said he didn't really know how to use it either. 

He reads through the half-dozen text threads on Cas' phone. From Sam, it's mostly texts saying "Where are you?" and answering locations, bits of info that seems like it might be related to cases, and an occasional request from Sam for Cas to pick up something on his way home. 

_Home._

That alone is still weird. 

The text thread between Cas and older Dean seems to be mostly the same, information-based and case-related, nothing terribly personal. Dean is a little disappointed. He doesn't know how to feel about his apparently impending sexual crisis, but he was kind of hoping to get a glimpse at whatever the hell is going on with these guys. 

And then Dean accidentally - he has no idea how he got there - finds himself in the voice-mail storage of the phone. Either older Dean is the only person to ever call this phone in the last two years, or Cas has kept every message he's ever left. 

Big. Fucking. Saps. 

Dean listens to his future self's hoarse voice snapping off mostly short, irritated messages. 

"Cas, answer your damn phone. Call me back, you dumb son of a bitch." 

"Cas, don't forget the pie. And… what's that? Sam says to grab him some of those stupid protein drinks. You know the ones. See you in twenty." 

"Dude. Answer your fucking phone. What's the point of getting a messenger of God a cell phone if you won't answer my calls or my prayers?" 

"Cas. If you're not dead, I'm going to fucking kill you, you hear me? You can't just disappear like this. You promised me, okay? Just don't… don't get dead again. Do not make me do something stupid here." 

The last one ends in several seconds of near silence, but Dean can hear the breathing on the other end of the line, can imagine his older self holding a phone up to his ear, trying to think of words that aren't desperate. He hangs up without saying anything else, and nothing else from the voice-mailbox is particularly interesting. 

Dead _again_? 

Dean checks Cas' call record once he finds it, and his contacts. Besides Sam, older Dean, and Jack, there is a woeful shortage of names in there. Dean is pretty sure most of the other contacts are their burner phones, given that they have names like "Agent Mercury" and "Agent McQueen". 

Dean yawns and clicks the little camera icon on the screen. Cas has, unsurprisingly, taken very few photos. There are what seem to be some accidental blurry shots of the floor, and one selfie of Cas and older Dean. 

Dean is guessing it was taken a while ago, maybe even transferred from another phone, because the other Dean in this picture looks happier than Dean can imagine the grumpy older Dean he's met ever being. 

It's a nice photo, impressive quality, really. Older Dean is clearly the one taking the shot, holding out the phone in one arm, grinning into the camera, his other arm around Cas' shoulders. They're somewhere outside, sun shining in a blue sky, red dirt looking hot and dry behind them. Cas isn't looking at the camera. He's in mid-speech, saying something to older Dean, half turned to him. The way he looks at older Dean in this photo is just as intense. Cas' hand is reached up to older Dean's hand hanging over his shoulder and their fingers are tangled. 

The photo makes Dean feel something funny in his stomach. He doesn't know what it is exactly. Loneliness, maybe. 

Dean's not sure how to feel about clearly being with another guy, but he finds himself half-hoping it's true. He doesn't… he just doesn't want to be this lonely forever. 

That thought is too pathetic for Dean to sit with, so he turns the phone off and gets up. He pads out of his room, down the hall and up to the kitchen, helping himself to a beer. The leftovers of the chicken parmesan he'd made them for dinner are sitting in neat Tupperware in a full fridge and just standing there looking at it makes him feel a little weepy. 

Maybe having a home and enough to eat is all it takes to make Dean a sap too. 

Dean takes his beer and heads up to the library. He figures he might as well get a jump on learning the lore while he’s here. Bobby would have killed to have access to all those books. Dean’s not Bobby or Sam, but it’s not like he doesn’t read. He just likes other things too, that’s all. 

When Dean opens the door to the library, he finds the lights are on. He steps inside and finds Cas in one of the arm chairs, curled up with a massive tome with a cracked black leather cover. Before Dean can sneak away again, Cas looks up and offers him a small smile. 

“Hello Dean.” 

“Hey,” Dean says, shutting the door behind him and heading over to flop down on the opposite arm chair. Because what the hell, right? “Couldn’t sleep either, huh?” 

“Angels don’t sleep.” Cas gives Dean an appraising sort of look. “But I imagine it would be difficult after the day you’ve had. I could put you to sleep, if you’d like.” 

“I - wait, what?” Dean sits up straighter in his chair, eyeing Cas warily. “What do you mean “put me to sleep”?” 

“Just use some of my grace to help you achieve unconsciousness. It’s nothing painful.” 

“Your grace?”

“My angelic powers. Not as strong as it once was, but perfectly competent for a dreamless night.” 

“Uh. No, thanks though." 

Cas shrugs, like he didn't expect Dean to take him up on the offer. 

"You really don't sleep? Ever?" 

"Only when I've lost my grace. I was human for a short time, and I slept then. It was strange and time-consuming, although there is something to be said for the human capacity to dream." 

"So is this what you do all night? Just read until everyone else wakes up?" 

Cas shrugs again, running a finger absently down the open pages in his lap. "When it's quiet. We're often fairly occupied with cases, so I do stakeouts or attend to other things so Sam and Dean can rest. Or I watch over them, when they let me." 

Dean feels a lump in his throat at that. Cas isn't exactly his idea of an angel, but there is something about him that feels not-quite human. Dean didn't notice it at first because he's used to that feeling around monsters, and he's pretty sure that Cas, in his trenchcoat and backwards tie, isn't evil. Call it a gut feeling, but while the guy might have power, Dean can't see him going darkside. "Huh. You know, it's funny," Dean says, dropping his gaze and speaking around the lump in his throat. "My mom always used to tell me angels were watching over me." 

When he looks back up, he's not expecting to see grief in Cas' eyes. 

"What?" Dean asks, feeling uneasy. 

"Nothing. I… I just wish I could have been watching over you sooner. I wish I could have done something to prevent Mary's death. She didn't deserve what happened to her." 

Dean frowns. Like Sam, Cas' words seem full of double-meaning. He doesn't know how else to respond though, so he just gives a tight little nod. He doesn't talk about mom much. Maybe there's some irony there, given that pretty much his entire life up until now has been devoted to tracking down the thing that killed her, his life swallowed by his father's obsessive grief over losing his wife. 

Cas continues to stare at him in the silence. 

"Dude," Dean finally says, when he can't resist shifting uncomfortably under his gaze. "You've got to cool it with the staring. Has no one told you how weird it is?" 

Cas blinks, looking faintly guilty, and drops his eyes deliberately to his book. "My apologies," he says again. "It's just that I never had a chance to meet you before… Well, I didn't know you at this time in your life, obviously. I'm just…" 

It's Cas' turn to shift uncomfortably. He glances up at Dean, then quickly down again. "It's a privilege to get to meet you like this," he says finally, not quite finishing his previous sentences. 

Dean doesn't know what to do with anything that Cas gives him, honestly. He shakes his head. "You are a strange dude, you know that?" 

Cas smiles, still looking down at his lap. It's a nice smile though. Guileless, Dean thinks. 

"Yes. So I've been told." 

By older Dean, Dean is willing to bet. He steels himself, taking advantage of Cas trying not to look at him, and takes a deep breath before plunging in. 

"Are we…" Dean trips on the words for a moment, not quite sure what to even ask - are they fucking? In love? Partners? - "Sleeping together?" he finishes. "I mean, you and - and future me." 

He's half-expecting Cas to deflect or deny it. Cas takes a moment to answer, fastidiously studying his fingernails before speaking. 

"Sometimes," he says simply, looking back up at Dean finally. He looks wary, maybe even nervous. 

Dean scowls, mostly to cover his own nerves. There it is. Confirmation more solid than Sam's speculation or a picture on a phone. 

"I'm not gay," Dean insists. The words come out frustrated and slightly petulant. 

"I know, Dean." Cas' voice is gentle, kind. Like maybe he's had this conversation before and was even expecting it. At least he calls him by his name without hesitation, like Dean is still a person. 

Dean stands up, because he doesn't know what else to do with this nervous energy and the panicky feeling in his stomach. He paces in front of the bookshelves, feeling caged and helpless somehow with this information. 

"I don't understand," Dean says finally, angrily, still restless as he treads the carpet. 

"You don't understand what you'd want with me." Dean catches a glimpse of hurt in Cas' face before he schools it into a gentle understanding and Dean feels immediately guilty. He doesn't want to fuck things up for his future self or hurt this guy, even if he is a total odd duck. 

"No, man, I didn't mean it like that. Look, you seem," Dean gestures vaguely at Cas, feeling a flush of self-consciousness. "I mean. You're not unattractive, you seem nice. It's just, I don't know you, and I can't see how I get from where I am now to where you guys are. I mean, I've never even-" Dean stops, biting his own tongue. Cas doesn't need to know about that. 

Except, from the look on Cas' face, it seems like he might already know exactly what Dean's getting at. 

Dean has made out with a couple of guys, but that's as far as he's ever gone exploring outside of a job. The couple of times he'd taken money to go further… he'd never exactly _liked_ it. Sometimes he thinks guys are attractive, but he figures that's probably pretty normal. He's never fully sure if the attraction is actually sexual, or just something more like envy for guys he thinks he'd like to emulate. And anyway, Dean just likes to flirt. It's fun and it's easy. It gets him attention. 

Okay, so maybe he's not totally straight, fine. But he's definitely not gay, either. He figures that even if he likes guys sometimes, it doesn't have to mean anything. He still likes women too, and so he figures he can just choose to stay, more or less, in that lane. 

"Not that I have a problem with anyone being gay," Dean adds, because Cas looks sad again and he's aware that he's probably coming across as way too defensive about the whole thing. "Bert and Ernie are cool with me. I'm just… I'm _not._ " 

"It's okay. You don't have to explain yourself to me," Cas says. "And I don't expect… what we have in the future, in our timeline, it's taken years to come together. I don't imagine you would have felt particularly favorable to it when we first met either." 

Dean scrubs a hand over his face. He's never had a relationship last more than a couple weeks. He doesn't think he's even had any friendships last much longer than that, except for a few of his hunting contacts, but they don't really count. The idea of knowing this guy for years, of living with him and going through life together… it's weird and unsettling, but it also makes Dean's stomach kinda ache. 

"What are we, anyway?" He feels stupid asking it, it's the kind of question that would make him bolt if a girl asked him that, but he has no context here. 

Cas sighs and closes his eyes for a second. Dean wonders if he's always looked this tired, or if, like Sam and older Dean, he too used to be young and unbroken. 

"You'll have to ask Dean that," Cas says. 

Dean scowls at him. "Oh come on. You and Sam keep saying that, but it's not like the guy's feeling too chatty towards me. This is your relationship or whatever too, how come I've got to hear it from future me?" 

"Because," Cas says, his words slow and careful. "Dean already knows that I would give him anything he asks for, so he's the one who puts the parameters on our "relationship or whatever". He's the one who should define it for you." 

_Christ._

Cas has got to be in his mid-forties, at least in appearance. He's an angel - an actual celestial being with the power to time travel, wipe memories, and put people to sleep. Dean's willing to bet there's a hell of a lot more that his grace can do. He's kind of weird, but clearly smart. Clearly capable in a fight or he wouldn't be around. 

And he is obviously, utterly, freaking whipped. 

"Cas…" Dean says. He's embarrassed to find that his voice comes out a little choked. 

It's just… _Jesus_. Cas talks about older Dean like he's in love with him. And Dean's not… he's just not the type of person people fall in love with. Hell, he couldn't even keep his own damn family together, why would some stranger who owes him nothing ever love him? 

Dean is a fuck-up with a pretty face and some outsized bravado. His only plans in life are hunting, and dying young. He doesn't even have a high school diploma, let alone ambitions or anything to offer except a life on the road. He's not tough like John or smart like Sam. He's just a soldier, there to do what he's told. 

What the fuck is an Angel of the Lord doing in love with him? 

"I don't, uh, I don't know what to do with that, man." 

Cas nods. "You don't need to do anything with it. I understand you don't know or trust me yet." 

Dean scratches the back of his neck. He feels out of his depth here in every possible way. He's grown up with the supernatural, but time travel? Angels? That's above his pay grade. Not his division. Older Dean and Sam seem to be taking this all in stride - like yeah, it's weird and inconvenient to have a Dean from the past running around in their timeline, but not at all unbelievable. 

Dean's head is still pounding. He rubs his temples absently. Cas has gone right back to staring at him, like it's habit. 

"Lemme ask you something," Dean says into the uncomfortable silence. "You're an angel and heaven and everything is real, right? What about God?" 

Cas closes his eyes and nods. "God is real." 

"Have you… met Him?" 

Another nod. Cas doesn't add anything though. He turns his eyes away when he opens them, looking into the middle-distance. 

Dean tries to pull together the scraps of religious doctrine he's gathered in his life. There are a lot of religious texts that have to do with demons and other monsters, so Dean's passingly familiar with biblical imagery and lore, but the actual religion stuff? Beyond "Thou shalt not kill" and "For though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil," his grasp on religious tenements is pretty lacking. 

"What about Jesus? Was he real?" 

Cas nods again. "Jesus of Nazareth was a good man. Devoted. But he was just a man. A prophet, not a messiah." 

"Huh," is all Dean can think to say to this revelation. 

"You haven't asked _why_ yet," Cas says mildly. "Why God would create and abandon this world, why bad things happen to good people, why so many prayers go unanswered." 

"Well, aren't you just going to tell me it's all ineffable?" Of course Dean wants to know why; why God allowed his mother to burn on the ceiling, why it has to be his family that gives up everything to protect other people, why God would make Dean the way he is. How could God allow so much evil to go unpunished? Eugenics and Nazis and genocide and pointless mundane suffering. 

Dean is used to taking orders without question. He figures if there's a reason behind his dad's authoritarian doctrine, there's probably much more to God's. 

"Ineffable," Cas repeats. "I suppose you could say that. Inscrutable. Intolerable. I'm not much of an angel, you know. Not how you'd understand us to be if you could have met the rest of my garrison. We are warriors of God, soldiers of Heaven. I rebelled and fell a long time ago, Dean. A long time in human years, anyway. And even after I fell, I wanted to believe in my Father. I've always tried to have faith, like a good son, a good soldier. It is not a simple thing, to look on the face of God and wonder if He is fallible." 

_A good son, a good soldier._ Dean searches Cas' face anew, something tugging at his heart. Cas' confession, if that's what this is, sounds a lot like Dean's feelings, played out on a cosmic scale. It's bad enough to be the son of a man who's basically a superhero. How much worse must it be to be a son of God? 

"Family dinners must be uncomfortable," Dean says, trying for levity. 

"Angels don't need to eat," Cas says, before cocking his head slightly. "Oh, you're making a joke." 

Dean rolls his eyes. Cas is definitely fucking weird, but Dean thinks, in spite of himself, that he kinda likes the guy. Not _likes_ him, that's still a mess he can't untangle, but Cas seems like he'd be fun to tease. 

"You don't get out much do you, huh?" Dean yawns on the last word, covering it with the crook of his arm. 

"I've traveled the world many times over. But if you're asking about my social interaction, I suppose not. I spent most of my existence as an interdimensional wavelength of celestial intent. Dean is often frustrated by my lack of pop culture knowledge." 

Dean lets himself smile a little at that. "Yeah, I'll bet. Hey, have I made you watch Star Wars yet?" 

Cas looks faintly pained again. "Yes. You were very annoyed when I pointed out the parallels it holds as an allegory to the story of Christ." 

Dean shoots him a scowl. "Oh come on. It's a movie franchise about space and droids. Leave proselytizing out of it." 

Cas shrugs, not looking offended at all. "I have no personal interest in peddling the gospel, believe me. It was just an observation." 

Dean wants to find the new Star Wars sequels and see what he's missing, and he wonders briefly if he could use the internet on Cas' phone to look for them, but he's starting to feel exhausted again. His head is full of more questions than ever, but he doesn't think he can keep pacing. The bed back in the spare room was soft and comfortable, better than anything he's had lately. 

"Okay, Cas. I'm going back to bed. You enjoy your dreamless reading." 

"Goodnight, Dean," Cas says, blue eyes intense on him. "I hope you sleep well." 

Dean is at the door before he pauses and turns back. He can't help himself. 

"Hey, Cas? What do you think is going to happen to me here?" 

"I don't know. You may be stuck here, I'm afraid." 

"And in three weeks? When the curse comes due?" 

"I won't let anything happen to you, Dean," Cas says. "To either of you. We'll figure it out." 

Dean's not exactly reassured by this. He wants to say, too, that he can take care of himself. But, well, what's the point? 

Dean hovers at the door for another moment before he asks, in a voice that is far too transparent for his own liking, "What do you even see in him? In older Dean, I mean." _In me._

Cas leans back in his chair, looking Dean over again like he's piecing him together in his head. For a second, Dean is sure Cas is going to say something sappy like "everything" - which would have been both overwhelming and useless. But Cas seems to be considering his words carefully before he speaks. 

"You have to understand that I'm much older than you think, Dean," Cas says. "I have existed for millenia. I have seen the best and worst of humanity. And you… You are the most caring person that I have ever known. You are so full of love, it spills over into everything you do. You care ferociously and with total disregard for yourself. You care about the world, about Sam, about Jack and me. You always do what you believe is the right thing, regardless of the consequences. Even when we have not agreed on what the right thing is, I have always admired your conviction. When I fell from Heaven, it was because I believed in your conviction of love and humanity. I do believe in it." 

"Jesus Christ, Cas," Dean says weakly. "You couldn't have just said I've got a nice ass? I'm not… I'm not any of that." 

"I promised Dean some time ago that I wouldn't lie to him," Cas says evenly. "So I won't lie to you. And you asked. You are beautiful, Dean, ass included." Cas' lips twitch on the words. "But you are also a good man. I want you to know that." 

Dean doesn't know how to argue the point without sounding like he's fishing for reassurance, so he just shakes his head. He's not _beautiful._ He knows he's pretty - people have made that clear since he was just a kid. He knows he's attractive, even though guys aren't supposed to be pretty. They're not supposed to be beautiful either, and anyway, beautiful implies something else, something complete. Dean's all stitched together pieces and steam. He's a magic trick, the prestige of hiding his worthlessness with humor and confidence. He's not as broken as his future self at least, but that doesn't mean there's much more to him. 

He's certainly not _good._

He's never been good. That's the whole fucking problem. He tries, he tries so hard, but he's never good enough. Not really. Not in any ways that matter. 

Dean shakes his head again. "Okay, Cas," he says finally, throat full of something that won't go down. "Sure." 

And he flees, back to the room in this place that isn't his, but will be one day, in this life he shouldn't be seeing yet. It's his and not his. Himself and not himself. 

Dean's asleep the moment he hits the pillow, crashing into unconsciousness and dreams of blue.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter Content Warnings: internalized homophobia/biphobia, briefly referenced past sex work, self-hatred


	4. Ceci n'est pas un poisson

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did I write this entire chapter just to be able to talk about a hot topic in fish taxonomy? ...Maybe. 
> 
> Content Warnings in end notes.

Sam wakes up before either of the Deans (and if that isn't a trip to think about...), and goes for his usual morning run. He makes eggs and sets a pot of coffee to percolate, then showers, dresses, and calls Charlie. 

Sam likes Charlie, of course, but she's much more Dean's friend than his. Sometimes, Sam looks at the contacts in his phone and wonders how that happened - how pretty much everyone in his life, except Eileen and maybe Jack, has a closer relationship with his brother. Sam doesn't begrudge Dean that, except that Dean can't see it. He stubbornly refuses to accept what he means to people, still stuck somewhere in their childhood when Sam was the baby, the one their dad and all his hunter friends seemed to prefer. Sam can see that, looking back, how messed up their whole dynamic was. He knows the thing he has with Dean is dangerously codependent, something zealous and unstable. Their relationship is unreasonable. Unreasonable love, unreasonable forgiveness. And it's still the healthier type of family bond Sam knows. 

Sam doesn't hate John. It's not that simple. Sometimes he gets so furious thinking about the way they grew up, furious with all of it, but he knows that his dad was messed up. He wasn't in a place to be taking care of children, and maybe it would have been better if he'd dumped them altogether, left Sam and Dean with Missouri or Pastor Jim or Bobby and hit the road. But he'd tried instead. He'd failed, yeah, Sam is perfectly willing to point that out, but he had tried. He'd cared, even if the ways he showed it weren't healthy. And John _had_ been a hero, of sorts. He'd saved hundreds of people's lives. He'd sacrificed his soul to save Dean. He'd never wavered in Hell. The good that John did in life doesn't cancel out the bad, but it goes both ways. Sam can't erase the good things about John either, no matter how angry he gets. More than one thing can be true at the same time, and that's where Sam holds his memories of his father, suspended somewhere between hate and love. 

The dynamic when they were kids, though… Sam hasn't found a way to forgive John for that. He can't forgive their father for how he treated Dean, and Sam sometimes thinks he's holding onto the anger around that for both of them. Even now, when Dean has worked through some of his issues with John, when he's had time and distance to understand how messed up their relationship was, he still clings to some scrap of loyalty, still tries to protect Sam from a tarnished view of their dad. 

Sam doesn't believe he was John's favorite, not really, but he understands why Dean has that idea drilled deep in him. 

_Look out for your little brother, boy._ It was always the last thing John said when he left them - in crappy motels, in abandoned buildings, with strangers. 

Sam knows, looking back, that the only reason he had any sense of childhood was because Dean made sure he had one, that he'd looked out for him in ways Sam hadn't understood, made sacrifices Sam will never be able to repay. Dean forged their dad's signature on permission slips for Sam to go on school field trips, hustled up money when dad left them short for food, clothes, and school books, made doctor's appointment for Sam when he was little and still needed vaccines, even though Dean couldn't have been more than six years old. But Dean was already shooting a gun at six years old too, already knew about demons and vampires and ghosts. He kept Sam out of that life, kept him free from the horrors of the things he knew, for a good seven years at least. At the age that Dean was learning to shoot, Sam was starting first grade and learning schoolyard games. Even once Sam knew, Dean kept him from hunting. John would take them along sometimes, leave Sam in the car and bring Dean with him, a bony little kid with huge eyes and already a collection of scars from serving as backup. And Sam would wait there with a book, wondering if his father and brother were going to come back alive. When John finally looked at Sam one day and said he was old enough to be handling a gun, Dean had stuck to his side like an anxious guard dog. Dean had thrown himself in harm's way just to keep his brother safe more times than Sam can count. 

Dean had thrown himself in front of John too. 

They don't talk about it. Dean _won't_ talk about it, getting pissed and ignoring Sam the couple of times he's tried to broach the topic. It's not like Sam's ever really expected anything else, but he wishes they could have that conversation, just get it out there. If nothing else, it's one of the countless unpayable things for which he wishes Dean would let Sam thank him. 

John never really hit Sam. He's not sure how that happened, honestly, if it was a dynamic established before he can remember, if four-year-old Dean was already taking on the beatings that might have been aimed at a crying, inconsolable baby. Or if it was that John really did see Sam as a kid and Dean as a soldier, as Dean grew up believing. Either way, a couple spankings here and there, sure, but even when Sam had been a back-talking, rebellious teenager, even when he and John had stood in a room screaming at each other, John hadn't tried to beat him. Now, though, Sam can remember him raising his hand sometimes, has the fuzzy recollection of Dean getting between them, Dean hustling Sam out of the room, telling him to go take a walk to clear his head and cool down. 

Sam's pretty sure his brother let John take it out on him instead. 

Sam can't repay that. He can't forgive that. 

He doesn't begrudge Cas, Charlie, Garth, Pamela, hell, even Crowley and Rowena, although he wouldn't exactly call them _friends_ , for having what Cas once called a "more profound bond" with Dean. He can't. Dean is complicated and ten different kinds of traumatized, but he is easy to love. He pulls people in without realizing it, drags them into the orbit of his convictions. 

And Sam? Sam's still the boy with the demon blood. He always will be. He's not that torn up about it, anymore. He's okay. Mostly, he's pretty okay. He's got Dean, Jack, Cas, and maybe Eileen. He has people he loves, and he knows they love him too. That's enough. 

"I'm sorry, _what?_ " Charlie says, after Sam gives her the short version. "You're telling me you've got a fully grown Dean and a little baby Dean paradox running around in the same timeline?" 

"Pretty much. Not sure that the paradox part is going to apply if we can't send him back to his own timeline though." 

"You mean we might get to keep him?" Charlie sounds a little too chipper about this prospect. "Oh my God. I mean, also _oh my God_. Two Dean Winchesters. Holy smokes. How's Dean handling it?" 

"Which one?" Sam rubs his forehead. "Our Dean stormed out and disappeared for most of the night, so who knows, and younger Dean is having a sexual identity crisis." 

Charlie chokes. "You made me spit coffee on my phone," she accuses. "What the heck happened with young Dean?" 

"Cas," Sam says simply, because it's not like Charlie doesn't know. "Dean, past Dean, was asking about him and then he asked me if he was seeing anyone and…" 

"Oh Sam," Charlie says. "You didn't." 

"I know. I know. But what was I supposed to say? He's going to figure it out if he's around those two for more than five minutes and I didn't want him freaking out and making Dean, our Dean, panic again." 

"They do give off some pretty clear pining vibes," Charlie admits with a sigh. 

"Do you think you can come over sometime this week? I think both Deans would love to see you." 

Charlie's laugh is delightful, even through the phone. "Calling in the gay reinforcements, Sam? Sure. I'd love to meet young Dean. I just want to sit him down and make him watch 20 hours of "It Gets Better" videos, you know?" 

Charlie agrees to come by the bunker in a few days, and Sam gets off the phone only feeling a little guilty about phoning in a queer friend. It's not like he's squeamish about sexual orientation, but he hopes maybe having a queer hunter around will make Dean less defensive. Plus he'll adore Charlie, regardless. The two of them are too similar. 

By the time Sam heads out to the kitchen, older Dean is up and drinking coffee standing. He looks hungover, but Sam can't tell if that's from alcohol or just his general state of mind at the moment. Knowing Dean, probably both. 

Sam pushes by his brother to pour himself a cup of coffee, pulling down three of their mismatched, chipped coffee mugs purloined from various hotels and offices over the years. 

"You forget how to answer your phone last night?" Sam asks mildly, heading to the table and folding himself into one of the chairs. 

"Just clearing my head. Wasn't urgent, was it?" 

Sam shrugs. The technical answer is no, it wasn't urgent except that it was immediate to Sam's own peace of mind to make sure Dean wasn't dead in a ditch somewhere. 

The night before, while younger Dean had been making dinner (and practically glowing about it), he'd asked "Why are you guys so worried about older me, anyway? You talk about him like you've got him on suicide watch." 

"Pretty much perpetually, yeah," Sam had said without thinking. 

Younger Dean had stopped grating cheese and frowned, glancing between Sam and Cas. Cas, useless with tact, was staring unhelpfully at his shoes. 

"I was joking," younger Dean had said, wary as he searched Sam's face. "Are you saying -" 

"No, sorry. I didn't… sorry, I was being mostly hyperbolic." Sam hadn't known how to explain himself to younger Dean, so he'd just said "I just worry about him sometimes. But that's my job, you know? Dean's had… he's had a rough couple of years." 

Which was underselling it to the point of lying by omission, but Sam doesn't know what to tell younger Dean and what to leave for present-day Dean to explain. 

"How are you doing?" Sam asks present Dean now, taking a sip of his coffee. He makes it strong and bitter, the only way he knows how. 

"I'm fine, Sam." Dean rolls his own mug between his hands. 

"Sure." Sam can't blame Dean. It's weird to see a living reminder of fifteen years ago. It's bringing up a lot of emotions for Sam too, thinking about who they both were back then. 

Honestly, Sam thinks if twenty-two year old Sam showed up, there's nothing he could say to convince him that they were the same person. He's not sure they are the same person. Sam has been irrevocably changed by the intervening years to the point that he barely recognizes himself in the mirror sometimes. He doesn't think the snarky, hotheaded, headstrong college student he'd been back then could understand the quiet, temperate, deliberate hunter that he's become. 

Sam is pretty much okay with those changes. Or he's accepted them at least. He's not twenty-two anymore. He's not the person he was before he lost Jesse, before they lost dad, before he knew about the demon blood, before Dean went to Hell for him. He's not the person he was before Lilith. Before Lucifer. Before the cage. 

Sam's thoughts stutter over his own memories of Hell, and he closes his eyes for a moment, concentrating on the searing warmth of the ceramic against his palms, the bitter smell of coffee, the sound of his own breathing. He lets himself feel it though, lets the thoughts come. That's one of the things he's learned over the years - shutting the memories down, trying to cram them somewhere unseen, it only makes it worse in the end. They come back stronger every time. A fear response only seems to encode them deeper into his psyche, so Sam lets them happen now. The only way out is through. 

And that's the problem with the whole Dean situation. It's not like Dean hasn't changed too. Of course he has. But Sam took all the pain and grief he's been given and he bent with it, let the shape of what he was becoming be exposed in the stripping down of his old self, the way a sculptor takes a chisel to marble. 

Dean just keeps shoving it all down, refusing to break, yes, but also refusing to bend. It changes him, but it pushes him farther inside himself. All that guilt, the anguish, the fear, it sits there and rots. Dean won't let it breathe. To him, being vulnerable to his past is a weakness. 

Sam blames John for most of that too. 

"When you're ready, you should talk to the other Dean," Sam says when he's fully back in the present. "He should hear the answers to his questions about his future from you." 

"What?" Dean looks over, alarmed. "No. You tell him." 

"Dean. Come on. He should hear it from you." 

"And he _should_ be icing a vengeful spirit in Washington right about now, but looks like we're throwing out the playbook on "should". Give him one of Chuck's novels, let him catch up that way." 

"Oh yeah, that'll go over well. I haven't even told him about Chuck yet. Come on, he's you. You know how hard he's going to take… everything." 

"Exactly, he's _me._ First sign of madness, Sammy, talking to yourself." Dean raises his eyebrows like he's just scored a point and Sam huffs out a sigh. Secretly, he's just glad Dean is up to joking about it this morning. 

Cas chooses that moment to come into the kitchen, and Sam watches the way Dean's body seems to automatically react to his presence. Dean's shoulders loosen, one foot shifting so that he's turned slightly in Cas' direction. When Cas makes his way past Dean to the coffee pot, Dean leans back against the counter to give him space and yet somehow their arms end up bumping. 

Sam busies himself with his phone so he won't get caught observing these ridiculous little signs of their affections. It's got to be the least-secret secret relationship since Eleanor Roosevelt and Lorena Hickok. 

It's not like Sam is mad that Dean hasn't told him. He kind of gets it - or at least, he gets that it's something hard and scary for his brother. And since this is something with a greater potential for good than most of the other hard and scary things they do on a regular basis, Sam's not going get in the way or make it about him. Except that he always has to go out of his way to pretend not to notice their little intimacies because he knows that Dean sometimes uses Sam "finding out" as an excuse to withdraw. Sam hates being used as a reason for Dean's self-sabotage. 

"Mornin' sunshine," Dean says, easy and sarcastic. 

Cas ignores him. He pours coffee into one of the old mugs and sighs into it. Angels certainly don't have to drink coffee, but Cas just seems to like it at this point. Or maybe he likes the morning ritual of it, the three of them, or four with Jack, gathered around their mugs, discussing a case or leads. 

"I finished the translations of Chiron's journals last night. Nothing about uncoupling the marksman's arrow and a soul," Cas says to them both. 

"Don't call it _coupling,_ " Dean says with a mock-scowl. 

"Don't be a child," Cas shoots back. 

Sam hides his smile in his coffee. He's gotten used to the way they gripe at each other like an old married couple and it's reassuring to hear them at it. He doesn't know how the hell this is all going to play out, but he's grateful at least for this. 

  
  


*** *** ***

There is no such thing as a fish. 

Cas tried to explain this to Dean, to Sam, to Jack, but each of them in turn had rolled their eyes or agreed dismissively without really understanding the impact of this statement. 

Dean had said "Is this another of your 'human categorizations are inherently meaningless' things? I get it, life is pointless, we're all gonna die and the universe won't mourn us, etc etc. Super nihilistic for an ex-agent, of Heaven, dude, but I'm on board." 

It was true, Cas had already tried to explain the relatively recent, and mostly colonized, history of categorizing human sex and gender. He'd already waxed poetic about the muddled myopia of good and evil. He'd pontificated on the falsehood of human dichotomies and admired the sometimes misguided evolutionary talent humans have for seeing patterns - whether or not they are there. 

But this is different. 

Sam had nodded absently, buried deep in an anthology of civil war military journals. "Sure, but does it matter to ichthyology?" 

Jack had looked at him blankly. "Did you want to go fishing or something?" 

Cas doesn't have any interest in fishing, no particular investment in ichthyology, and yes, he's full of nihilism these days, but that's not his point with the fish. 

Once, Cas saw the beginning of it all: that first waddle onto land that signified the start of The Plan, that flop of scales and gasping breath - miraculous, oxygen-filled breath - that would lead to the people Cas now loves and lives for. 

It started with a fish. 

Or it didn't. It started with some nameless, faceless eukaryote, hidden in the primordial soup of warm saltwater that coated the earth. It started beneath the muddy waves, single-celled, improbable and perfect. It started in the culmination of materials of the universe - all that stardust fixed into _being._

This is why it matters to Cas, to be able to name the moment of becoming. Humans trace their lineage - grudgingly, but persistently - back to fish, but fish do not exist. 

It isn't just semantics, although Cas is fond of linguistic pittraps. It's taxonomic. Scientific. Universal. It's that human beings looked at a salmon and a lung fish and said "yep, scales, lives in the water, close enough, let's eat." 

They didn't understand that just because a creature lives in the water, just because it might have scales and fins and taste like brine, it didn't mean their insides or their history or their DNA was the same. 

Cas can trace the lung fish's family tree back to cows more easily than to salmon. It's there in the name - its lungs work more like most mammals than like a trout. 

The name of fish isn't just meaningless categorization - it's binding limitation. It's stifling inaccuracy, all for the sake of a story humans tell themselves, because it's easier to look at the roughly similar shapes of fish than to peer into the diversity that lurks beneath the waves. 

If fish as a taxonomical category does not exist, what was that ancestor that climbed out of the ocean? What secrets did its insides contain? What bacteria lived and died on and in this holy grail of creation? Was it closer to the lung fish or the salmon? The catfish or the lamprey? 

Cas doesn't remember that much. Just a hand of one of his brothers, Gabriel, he thinks, pointing the wet, sloppy thing out to him. 

Cas had been new to existence, everything bright and painful and beautiful. He'd believed it mattered then, that every last atom had a purpose. 

Either there are no fish, or they are all fish. That's how boundless the term is. 

The surface of a thing is not its only boundary. The image of a thing is not the thing itself. 

_Ceci n'est pas un poisson_. 

Cas is not just light. He's not just flesh. He's not just a warrior, not just an angel, not just a human. 

Dean isn't just Dean as he exists in the moment. He's every moment that came before, all of them crashing together at once, a whole history of the universe colliding in this stubborn, loving, self-destructive man. Dean at forty-one contains the roots of Dean at twenty-six, Dean at twenty-six contains the potential of pathways that lead to Dean at forty-one. And on and on. 

_I am vast. I contain multitudes._

Cas isn't allowed to say such things, but he'd tell Dean if he could that the way he loves Dean is non-linear and eternal. He loves every iteration of him - in 1979, in 1992, in 2005, 2010, 2020. He loves in a boundless way, without definition or limitation. 

Dean would probably say it was creepy, for Cas to say he loves Dean as a four year-old just as much as a thirty-five year-old, but that's the problem with being a celestial being in love with a human. The way that Cas loves isn't like that. It's not that he doesn't like sex with Dean - he likes it very much - but that has so little to do with the way Cas feels about him. Sex is an act, a type of attraction. It's something they do together, something Cas wants with forty-one year-old Dean, but it isn't fundamental in the way that his desire to protect Dean is fundamental. Cas loves Dean like family as much as anything else. It isn't contradictory to Cas, doesn't mean anything incestuous. He just _loves._ A love without perimeters. A love he'll let Dean define the way he needs to, into something he can accept. 

Cas will love Dean in whatever way Dean will let him. 

These days, Dean only lets himself come to Cas when he's either drunk or in complete emotional collapse. Cas, selfishly, oh so selfishly, prefers the latter, because at least emotionally devastated Dean wants affection, wants to be held and sometimes even to talk. They _do_ talk, just not about the thing between them. 

Drunk Dean is a different kind of desperate. Cas honestly doesn't know if he's doing something wrong in letting Dean ask for what he wants when he's intoxicated enough to let himself want it. Cas has tried to talk to him about it when he's sober, but Dean always shuts him down, shuts him out. So Cas lets Dean ask for whatever he wants in whatever ways he can, and Cas just bears the uneasy guilt of it. He doesn't know how else to handle it. He doesn't want Dean disappearing on him again. 

For a little while, between Dean's initial panic over having sex with Cas, and whatever they are now, there was a time when Cas thought they might actually be something more. They'd become comfortable with each other in a way Cas had never dared to expect. 

When Dean kissed Cas that first night, Cas figured it was probably going to blow up in his face, but he went with it willingly. He thought it was probably a one time thing, Dean just needing it out of his system, needing something to distract him, needing to forget for a moment. Cas had been willing to give him that. 

It was Dean who broke his own rules. 

Cas had made a concerted effort to give him more space than usual, gone out of his way not to touch Dean in any of their normal little gestures. But Dean kept coming into Cas' personal space, kept bumping their shoulders in passing, kept brushing their knees under the table. It took Cas an embarrassingly long time to realize that it was on purpose. 

Dean's hand lingering in a clasp on the shoulder, his fingers running along to the back of Cas' neck. Dean's thigh pressed against his in a diner booth, warmth soaking through his jeans. Dean's arm thrown over the back of Cas' chair, not quite touching, but quietly possessive. 

One night together turned into a second, a third, until Cas lost track of the number, until sleeping together was just something they did. Sometimes Dean kicked Cas out afterwards, but more often he let him stay, let Cas hold him and caress his skin and sometimes even let him murmur that he was beautiful, so beautiful.

Dean would tell him to shut up, but in the gruff, affectionate way that meant he was secretly pleased with it. 

Of course, Dean blew hot and cold. It wasn't like they had a lot of time to themselves anyway, always kept busy fighting one evil or another. But even so, Dean was warm and affectionate and holding Cas' hand while he drove one moment, and couldn't meet his eyes the next. 

Cas can't fully understand Dean's hang up around his sexuality, because Cas himself is so utterly indifferent to this aspect of the physical body, but he accepts that it matters to Dean. He knows there are years of ingrained self-hatred there, and Cas just does what he can to let Dean work it out. 

For a moment, after Dean's initial panic that Mary might find out about them (Cas didn't have the heart to tell Dean that he's pretty sure Mary knew from the moment she saw them together), after Mary had met Cas and approved of him as family, for the brief time when they really had felt like a family together, Cas thinks he and Dean had started building something of their own. 

It wasn't a relationship, exactly, but a togetherness. Something that was theirs, intimate and important and real. It was Dean letting himself hope for something, and Cas falling, as always, into Dean's gravity. 

And then Cas had done something unforgivable. 

Not what happened with Jack and Mary, although that hadn't helped. That period of blame and bitterness still stings, but Dean cares too much not to forgive, eventually. 

Before all of that, Cas had died. 

Dean's relief when Cas returned, again, from the dead, was a palpable thing. Like an octopus wrapped tight around his heart, a painful constriction. But after the initial relief, the reunion, Dean's hand pressed to his face the way it always was to check that Cas was real, alive, solid and warm, Dean had shut down again. He'd pushed Cas away, shut off whatever it was they had been making together, slipped back into his own defenses. 

This at least is something Cas understands. 

Dean has lost everyone. 

Sometimes they return to him, but Cas suspects this might be worse in a way, to lose someone after you've gotten them back once. If death isn't final, how do you ever move on? How do you ever find closure to grief if there is a hope, a chance, a prayer, that your loved ones may come back to you? 

Sam and Dean, and Cas most of all, have skirted and bargained and cheated death so many times over. They never know when will be the last. 

Despite it all, Cas thinks that Dean had let himself start to see some sort future with Cas, to trust that he'd be around, because Cas has died a lot but he's still less killable than most. He seemed safer to love. 

It had been a betrayal of sorts to die. It had been Cas leaving Dean, the way everyone has always left him. 

The night they'd come back to the bunker after Cas' resurrection, after the reunion with Jack, after Jack had gone to his room and Sam had hastily disappeared, Dean had dragged Cas to his room and kissed him with savage desperation. It had felt so urgent, Dean's hands pushing up under his clothes to make contact with his skin, to feel his living warmth, his breath,, his heartbeat. Cas had let himself melt into it, grateful to be back with Dean too. But in the middle of everything, Dean having pulled Cas on top of him, Cas sliding obligingly between his legs, Dean's breath had hitched all wrong. He'd turned his face away, otherwise silent tears pricking at his eyes, spilling over. 

Cas had stopped, suspended above him, and rubbed his thumb over Dean's cheek, wiping the first few tears away. 

"What's wrong?" he'd whispered. "Should I -" 

Dean had shaken his head, face still turned away and eyes scrunched shut. "No, don't stop. It's fine. I'm fine." 

Cas had run his hands over Dean's shoulders, down the sides of his body to his hips, tugging him closer, thumbs brushing over his hip bones. 

And Dean had started to cry in earnest, in a way Cas had rarely seen before, still silent, his mouth and eyes clamped shut. 

"Dean," Cas said. "I can't… Here." 

Dean made a soft noise as Cas pulled out, laying down next to him instead and pulling Dean into him. 

"Just come here." 

Dean let Cas pull him in, hid his face in Cas' shoulder, and Cas rubbed his back, kissed his hair, felt Dean's shoulders shake with silent sobs. 

Cas wondered when Dean had learned to keep his tears silent. If it had come from hiding it from John, from Sam, from the world. 

"You were _dead,_ " Dean finally said into Cas' naked skin, now peppered with saltwater. Dean punched his shoulder twice. It wasn't gentle, but Cas didn't care. "Dead, Cas." 

"I know," Cas said helplessly, smoothing Dean's hair and pressing him closer. "I'm sorry. I know." 

Dean made a first muffled sob against him and Cas dug his nails into Dean's back, trying to reassure him that he was there, he was alive, they were both alive. 

"I love you," Cas said, his own voice choked. He spoke it into Dean's hair. "I love you." 

Dean's fingers dug into Cas' side in return. He pushed himself up to kiss Cas' neck, then finally pulled Cas in to kiss him on the mouth, still tasting of salt. 

It's the only time Cas has said it. He's wanted to a hundred times before and since, but he knows Dean can't return it. Cas doesn't mind that, but Dean would. Cas is pretty sure the guilt of it would make Dean bolt. 

That night had been tender when Dean calmed down. The last real tenderness they had for a while. They still have sex sometimes, but it's not the same. Dean's walls are back up, and Cas can't do anything except wait to see if they come down. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter Content Warnings: internalized homophobia, reference to past child abuse (physical and emotional), other reference to emotional abuse, mention of canon character death, reference to some dubious consent situations, brief mention of suicidal ideation


	5. The devil makes three

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Season 15 timeline? _What_ Season 15 timeline? 
> 
> Just a note that I have to do some Big Adult things in the next couple days/weeks and as a result posting may be a little less frequent. Still relatively frequent, just not as quick. 
> 
> Content warnings in end notes.

Forty-one year-old Dean is still in the kitchen when his younger self arrives, looking slightly lost. The irrational anger Dean feels at the sight of his own face isn't something he cares to meditate on. 

_Stupid,_ he thinks. _Useless. Naive._

Younger Dean looks around the kitchen, hair disheveled from sleep, taking in Sam and Cas first before settling on Dean. He frowns, looking wary. Dean breaks eye-contact, scowling at the floor. 

Sam clears his throat. 

"Morning," he says to younger Dean, like he's just another houseguest. "There's coffee and eggs. Bread's on the counter if you want toast." 

"Thanks," younger Dean says. He seems awkward this morning, his initial shock wearing off. 

Dean can't really imagine what his reaction to all of this would have been at twenty-six. Not that he has to imagine it, since his past self is _right there._ But Dean doesn't know what he'd be feeling, what he'd be expecting. He was so full of bluster and bravado at that age. 

Dean moves out of the way, taking the long way around the kitchen island to avoid directly crossing paths with his younger self. Maybe it's the antagonism in his heart, or maybe it's just every sci-fi movie he's ever seen telling him not to interact with himself in his own timeline. 

But so much for that. 

"So," younger Dean says, pouring himself some coffee and looking at the rest of the room. "Any thoughts on how to unstick me from time, or…?" 

Sam sighs, scrubs one massive hand over his face, and tries to work out the problem. "Okay, we have two possibilities right now. Either we find a way to fuse you back into the Dean that Crowley pulled you from, or you stay here indefinitely. Either way, we should summon Crowley back, get him to explain what he did so we know what we're dealing with." 

"You're leaving out the third option," younger Dean says, his voice too glib to be entirely natural. "Third option is that I do what I got pulled here for. I mean, I'm just a copy. I'm not even supposed to be alive right now, so -" 

" _No,_ " Sam and Dean say at the same time. Younger Dean looks between them, a small smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. 

"That's not happening," Sam says firmly. "I told you, we'll figure it out." 

"Yeah, well, no offense, but humor me - what if you don't? It's an ancient Greek demonic curse you said, right? Sounds pretty powerful. Now I don't know what you all have gotten up to in the future, but I don't have a clue how to break something like that. Look, I'm not saying I'm thrilled about it, but in the grand scheme of things -" 

"No," Dean says again sharply, cutting him off. "Shut up. I'm the one who got cursed. The marksman is coming for me. If we can't figure this out another way, you're not taking that arrow for me. No discussion." 

"Dude, you can't just say 'no discussion.' That's not an argument." 

"Yeah, it's not an argument because there's not going to be any arguing. I'm older than you which means a) you should listen to me, and b) I've got dibs on death. Wait your turn." 

"No one is dying," Sam says, interrupting before younger Dean can shoot back a retort. "We always figure something out. We've got three weeks before the next new moon and a bunch of Greek journals in the archives. There's got to be something on this Cerodicus guy in there." 

“How’d you get cursed anyway?” younger Dean busies himself making toast, and Dean doesn’t miss the hint of accusation in his voice. Well, fuck him. 

“I pissed off a witch who was shacking up with a demon. Ganked the son of a bitch and she broke an old vase over my head. Curse inside the vase lands on me, abracadabra, here we are." 

Sam had grabbed the witch while Dean staggered, and she'd laughed hysterically as she shouted at Dean that he'd die too, that he was cursed, cursed to the very soul. And then she had thrown herself onto Sam's knife, making that choice for them, hari-kari-ing herself into Sam's arms. 

It hadn't been too difficult to trace the images on the broken vase back to Cerodicus, but apart from the lore around the vase that cropped up as part of its mythology in auction houses and art blogs, there wasn't much to go on. 

"You mean exorcised, right?" Younger Dean slathers butter and jam on his toast when it pops up, cramming it into his mouth like he doesn't know when his next meal will be. 

And… huh. 

It's been so long that Dean kinda forgot what that felt like. Nowadays it's a toss-up on whether he can stomach anything. Sometimes food still gives him joy, but there are a lot of days now when it's the last thing on his mind. Maybe it was Michael, not needing to eat as an angel and then barely being able to exist in the world at all while he was fighting him off. Maybe it was losing mom again, the pale slackness to her face that still haunts him on every other breath. Maybe it was nearly letting Cas go over it. 

It's been a long time since Dean's primary relationship to food was hunger. Even at twenty-six, when he was grifting his way to his next meal, adept at hustling poker and coasting on a few fake credit cards, he hadn't been secure day to day. 

This is exactly why Dean can't handle being around his younger self. Everything about him is _starving:_ for food, for stability, for attention. He was so desperate, so needy. 

"No. Ganked. Killed. Took out." 

"You can't kill a demon," younger Dean says flatly. "Can you?" 

"Yep," Dean says. He doesn't elaborate and younger Dean scowls at him. 

"It's difficult," Sam hastens to add, shooting Dean a look that says _play nice._ "But we have a couple of things that will do it. We've got a demon knife, or an angel blade will work." 

Younger Dean raises his eyebrows, but he just says "Okay." 

Sam’s phone buzzes on the table, and Dean can tell who the text is from by the way his brother’s face lights up. 

“Eileen’s here,” Sam says, his smile easy, automatic. Nothing in their lives makes sense these days, but Dean is glad Sam has Eileen back, at least. There’s an uneasy part of him that is waiting for it all to fall apart, the part of him that still whispers _what’s dead should stay dead._ It’s laughable. They’re all walking resurrections. 

“Invited her over to see the roadside attraction?” Dean asks, more snappish than he really means to be. Sam rolls his eyes, lets it roll right off of him. 

“She’s here to help us look for something to counteract the curse, dumbass.” He gets up, unfolding like the massive tree that he is. “I’ll be right back.” He tosses this to younger Dean, who nods, looking a little nervous. 

As Sam walks out of the kitchen, Dean finally takes a seat at the table, flopping two chairs down from Cas. The silence that rushes in to Sam’s absence is tense and awkward. Younger Dean runs his fingers through his hair. Dean hunches his shoulders and glares at the table. Cas glances between them, starkly uncomfortable. 

“Um,” Cas tries after a moment. It’s valiant, really. “You know, it’s funny, many of the characteristics that modern day historians associate with Ancient Greek art are inaccurate. Take any given Greek bust or statue, for instance. You tend to value the bare, unadorned marble for its clean minimalism, but in reality the Greeks were big fans of bright colors and bold patterns. The works were almost always heavily painted. Finding traces of pigment on some of the statues has caused quite a fierce debate in the art world these days. People think the style of paint looks garish. Of course, it’s endemic to how human historians like to view Greece. Dismissing the paint is sort of a continuation of the erasure of the existence of people of color in Ancient Greece or the homoeroticism of much of the -” 

Dean kicks Cas under the table. 

“What?” Cas frowns at him, as if Dean’s foot could even hurt him. 

Dean sighs and lays his head down on top of his arms on the table. “Cas. We’ve been over this. The whole point of kicking you under the table is subtlety. You’re rambling again, man.” 

Younger Dean looks between Cas and Dean with a crease between his eyebrows, like he's running red string between them and coming up with question marks. Dean definitely does not need _that_ in his life. 

Sam comes back with Eileen then, saving them all from the palpable discomfort. Eileen's eyes go from Dean to Cas to young Dean, and her grin is too mischievous for its own good. Dean gets up and hugs her anyway, quick and brotherly. 

He still signs clumsily, even though he's practiced, but he can manage a brief accompaniment as he says "Good to see you," out loud. 

"Good to see you, too, Dean." 

Eileen turns to younger Dean, practically beaming. Younger Dean's eyebrows have shot up and Dean squirms internally. He was such a little shit at that age. He was insensitive and kind of misogynistic, and probably ableist, and he doesn't like to think about any of that. He doesn't want Eileen to deal with any of his twenty-six year-old self's problematic crap. 

"Hello, other Dean. It's good to meet you," Eileen says, her distinctive, careful way of talking full of a hidden amusement. 

"Hey," younger Dean says. He finally comes out from around the breakfast nook and holds out a hand. "It's my pleasure, I'm sure." He speaks a little too loud, a little too slow. 

Eileen shakes his hand, beaming. 

"You're a hunter too?" younger Dean asks uncertainly, eyeing her outfit and its many hidden weapons. 

"Yes. For pretty much my whole life, like you and Sam." 

Younger Dean nods, glancing over her head at Sam. 

"We met hunting Banshees," Sam says, careful to tap Eileen's shoulder first so that she can turn to read his lips. His hand lingers on her jacket for a moment too long. 

Younger Dean's eyes widen and he grins. "Banshees? Nice! I've only read about them." 

Dean glares harder at the table. No Banshees yet. Barely any demons. No angels. No leviathan. No Chuck. 

Cas nudges his shoulder. When Dean looks at him, Cas is searching his face, asking without asking _where'd you go?_

No Cas yet, either. No one who looked at him like this, who noticed when he was drifting too far off in his own head and pulled him back. 

Dean must have missed part of the conversation because Sam is saying "... coffee, if you want some." Eileen nods, brushing past younger Dean and turning her back on them all to fill a mug. Younger Dean glances at her, then gives Sam a quick thumbs up and a grin. Sam smiles, ducking his head slightly, but Dean can tell he's pleased that younger Dean approves. 

And Dean just _can't_. He stands abruptly, causing everyone but Eileen to look at him in response to the loud scratch of his chair against the floor. 

"I'm out," Dean says. "I'm gonna… I'll pick up the stuff to summon Crowley back. We're out of his stupid preserved fruit and we're low on bones." 

They are not, in fact, low on bones at all, but the fruit thing is true. The ritual for summoning Crowley, fusspot that he is, is very specific. 

Sam's expression is worried, so Dean turns away from it, waves at Eileen to get her attention and signs a goodbye. 

"I could go with you," Cas says, in a voice that expects rejection. 

"It's fruit, Cas, not really a two person job." Dean doesn't look at him. He fishes for his keys and stalks out without saying anything to his younger self. 

Dean knows it's insane to be jealous of _himself_ bonding with Sam, but fuck it, that's what's happening. He can't sit there and watch his brother get attached to this copy of something he once was. 

"Dean, hey, hold on a sec." Sam catches up to him at the garage door, jogging down the hall like a lumbering moose of a man. "Hey, just… Are you okay?" 

Dean pinches between his eyebrows. "Sam…" 

"Look, I know. I know this is, uh, weird." 

"We don't have time for this," Dean says, frustration spilling into his voice. "For any of it. The curse, this other me, whatever. We're supposed to be helping Jack, get him ready to…" Dean doesn't end the sentence. They've taken up the habit of not saying Chuck's name in the bunker, trying to always assume he's listening, watching. For all Dean knows, he's somewhere out there enjoying the show, watching them squirm about what to do with younger Dean. For all they know, this is _why_ Chuck brought Crowley back, and not, as they had assumed, out of a narrow definition of "enemy" when God had decided to re-release all their foes upon the earth. Dean doesn't trust anything to be real or free of Chuck's meddling fingers anymore. 

All the same, this doesn't feel like Chuck. It feels like dumb fucking luck, the Winchester specialty. 

"We will," Sam says, his deep level voice full of a certainty that Dean knows he doesn't feel. "We will. But Jack's doing his part, and besides research there's not much we can do right now. So we're gonna take cases, and we're gonna get you de-cursed, and we'll sort out what to do with younger you. And then we'll keep on worrying about… everything else." Sam rakes his hand through his hair and Dean takes a second to examine the creases around his eyes, the lines in his forehead. 

Dean plays his part in all of this, will go on doing anything and everything to protect his little brother as best he can, but he's just self-aware enough to know that somewhere along the way it became Sam who is holding them all together. It's Sam who really acts like one of the Men of Letters, who took on responsibility with Earth Two's hunter organization. Somehow, in all of this, Sam turned out to be the stable one, the one who could take it all on without buckling. The one who jogs every morning and drinks green smoothies and can still laugh at Dean's jokes, can still like a girl without making it twenty different kinds of complicated. 

The lump that forms suddenly in Dean's throat is one part sadness for the years that have made their mark on his brother's face, one part a bittersweet sort of pride: Sammy grew up alright. 

Dean claps a hand to his brother's shoulder, and Sam startles a little. "I know, Sammy. I'm just… being reminded of who I… who we used to be, before everything, it messes with my head, you know? But I'm okay. I'm fine. I'm just gonna go for a drive, pick up Crowley's stupid summoning fruit, and then I'll help research. Okay?" 

Sam eyes him. "Okay…" 

"Seriously, it's all good. Don't leave your girl alone in there, younger me's an idiot, remember?" 

Sam rolls his eyes. "Just don't do anything stupid." 

Dean forces a grin, all distracting charm and charisma that has never fooled Sam. "Me? I'm too old for that."

When Sam was little, real little, barely walking, Dean used to sit up at night in a cold sweat of anxiety, just watching him sleep, worried in that empty, gnawing pit in his stomach that something was going to happen to him. Dean didn't know how to be a dad, or a mom, or whatever, and it just always felt like he was failing. Sure, sometimes Dean was annoyed and frustrated too, when looking out for his little brother meant that he didn't get to do what he wanted, but he loved Sam. He _wanted_ to look out for him. He just… sometimes he just wasn't big enough or smart enough. 

Dean remembered going to the doctor regularly when mom was alive. The idea of a check-up seemed laughable by the time Dean was six - by that time he was already sewing up John's wounds in motel bathrooms. But he remembered his mom holding him in her lap in a doctor's office, even though she'd been pregnant and he'd been squeezed right up against her belly, Mary's voice telling him that growing boys need shots to make sure they don't get sick. 

Dean had been afraid of needles back then, afraid of doctor's offices, afraid of the wooden tongue depressors kept in a jar on the desk. What a luxury it was, to have a child's fears. 

Mary had stroked his hair and told him he was a brave boy, a good boy, her little angel. "I know it's scary, baby, but this is to keep you safe," she'd told him. She'd let them give her a shot too, Dean thought. Or maybe they just faked it, but she'd done it to show him it was okay. 

So at the age of six, when Sammy was just a toddling two year-old, Dean had called a local pediatrician. He'd made John take them, because already Dean was acutely aware of the dangers of Child Protective Services. It was why they never let maids in to clean the room when he and Sam were staying somewhere by themselves. John had driven and walked them in and faked the insurance paperwork, but it was Dean who scheduled it, Dean who held Sammy's hand, and when he wouldn't stop crying and fighting the doctor it was Dean who asked Sam if he wanted Dean to go first, to show him it was okay. Sam had watched, big ol' eyes still watery with tears as Dean let one of the doctors jab him with something, and just like that Sam had gone all limp and trusting. 

The doctor had smiled at Dean as she gave Sam his shots and told him what a good, brave big brother he was. It wasn't the same as when his mom had said it, but it had made Dean's chest glow warm.

Dean wonders sometimes when Sam started worrying about him. A part of Dean still, and will always, _always,_ see his mountain of a man brother as the little gap-toothed kid with scraped knees and innocent smile, holding Dean's hand. Dean's responsibility, his reason for being. 

Dean's never told Sam, but he's not sure he'd be alive if he hadn't had his pain in the ass little brother to look out for. Mom was dad's reason for living, or revenge for her anyway, and Sam was Dean's. 

If he looks back hard enough, and he really tries not to, Dean thinks he can see that part of Sam's anger as a teenager had been about caring for Dean. Dean hadn't known that at the time, couldn't have seen it, but he still remembers the desperate warmth he'd felt in hearing Sam say "And what do you think my job is, Dean?" so many years ago. Dean knew Sam had his back, but he really hadn't known that Sam had been looking out for him too. He sees it now in the way Sam used to yell at John, hands curled into fists, refusing to back down over arguments Dean was never brave enough to have, the way Sam had yanked Dean out of John's drunken rages when Dean would have stayed to take care of him, the way Sam had always rushed to Dean first when he and John came back from a hunt, Sam's long fingers flitting over Dean, looking for injuries. 

And now here they are, perilously close to middle-aged, still each other's greatest anxiety, greatest comfort. 

Isn't this what makes them Chuck's favorite show, in the end? Their neurotic, irrational, codependent love for each other? Isn't it that very thing that keeps ruining Chuck's endings? 

Dean's wondered a lot lately what about their lives is real - often, the answer he comes up with is _nothing._ He thinks about Chuck watching all this time, there in the doctor's offices, in the empty motels, in the gas station pitstops. Dean has been driving himself crazy wondering if Chuck created him, manipulated him, to be exactly the way he is today. 

But Chuck should have known, if he really was writing this show, if he'd really been paying attention, that there was nothing in the universe the Winchester brothers wouldn't do to save each other. It's like he keeps forgetting that, like he keeps tripping over this characterization on the way to his plots because he didn't write that one. 

They wrote that. They chose it. They chose each other. 

Chuck knows this, he's said it before. But it's like it's incidental to him. Dean just doesn't know if this is something they can use against him or not. 

Dean has to drive all the way out to some bougie hippy "natural foods" store he wouldn't normally be caught dead in, just to find the right ingredients for the summoning ritual. The very cute curly-haired cashier named Liz flirts with him, and Dean flirts back, an easy routine he can fall back into. When he gets back to the Impala he realizes she's written her number on the back of his receipt. 

Dean's not gonna say it doesn't do something for his self-esteem, but… well. 

He crumples the receipt up and tosses it in one of the bags in the backseat. It's been a long time since he had a one night stand or a hookup in a dirty bar bathroom. It's just not what he wants anymore. That freaked him out at first, when he realized one day seemingly out of nowhere that it had been years since he'd hooked up with a woman. Since he'd so much as kissed anyone besides Cas. But it's been more years since that realization, and Dean's sort of adjusted to it. 

Part of the idiotic math in his head that justifies this thing with Cas is that Dean can't stand the thought of pulling anyone else into this life just to get killed because of him. He can't do it anymore. But Cas… he's probably going to get the stupid angel killed again, but at least Cas is already in it. At least sleeping with Cas probably isn't going to make him any more of a target than he already is. They were each other's weakness long before they started having sex. 

_You're not in this story,_ Chuck told them once, and Dean believes that was real surprise in his voice. Castiel was never supposed to rebel, just happened to come off the line with a "crack in his chassis," a split in the seams of his faith and obedience that Dean managed to worm through with his own persistence and blind obstinacy. Cas falling, always so literally falling, for Dean wasn't destiny. It wasn't pre-determined, wasn't something Heaven had planned. They weren't soulmates, weren't _meant to be._

They chose each other too. 

Dean just wishes he was braver. 

Dean takes a detour to a state park where a short trail runs through the woods down to a lake. He pulls two bottles of the gross fancy beer he bought at the natural foods store out and slips them into the inside pocket of his jacket where they clink merrily. 

It's a quick walk down to the lake and no one is out there - it's the middle of the week and it's getting brisk out. The sky is a little cloudy, but the sun is out in full view at the moment and as Dean stands on the shore he tilts his head up to it, lets himself feel the warmth on his face. 

Okay, so maybe the fancy beer isn't _gross._ Dean drinks the first bottle quickly, begrudging to admit that it tastes fine. It's not his favorite, but it'll do. 

Dean is aware that he's an alcoholic, he just doesn't see the problem. It was the same with John, the same with Bobby. Same with Ellen. If you make it past a certain age as a hunter, Dean figures, that's your reward. 

Only Sam and people like Garth can make it through any other way. Dean doesn't need Sam's judgement or worry over his breakfast whiskey or midmorning beer or whatever. It's not like he's even getting drunk, he just… it just helps. 

And with twenty-six year-old Dean running around, Dean thinks he deserves a drink. 

Dean can't decide what bothers him most, the way Sam seems fond of younger Dean, or how desperately pleased younger Dean is to win Sam's affection. 

Everything about Dean at that age was desperate. He's pretty sure everyone could see it, too, how eager he was for any scrap of attention. He'd flirted his way through Midwestern bars as he worked jobs, hating going back to an empty motel now that Sam was at Stanford and dad was leaving him alone for longer and longer stretches. 

Of course, a lot of the time Dean had just slept in the Impala. It was cheaper, and less lonely somehow. He'd curl up in the back under dad's old leather jacket that still smelled like the old man no matter how many years Dean wore it, with a flashlight and a paperback book he'd found at a thrift store or stolen off a tourist's table or something, and read until he fell asleep. 

Dean had never considered himself a tourist. He was there to work, afterall. No matter where he went, there were always the great open roads of America, and the road was his home. 

Dean opens the second beer and slings it back. The shifting sunlight on the lake is a blinding silver in the rippling gray water. 

Dean might die in three weeks. Big surprise. Hell, who knows, he might not even make it that long if something else gets to him before the stupid frikkin' curse. Dean's really over being cursed. 

He can't remember - and it freaks him out to realize it - if he'd felt it at twenty-six. If he'd believed yet that his own skin was poison, that the Winchesters were just cursed, that _the very touch of you corrupts._

Dean gets back into the car around noon, runs his hand gently over the steering wheel of his baby. He loves this car with his whole goddamn heart. It's the easiest love he's ever known. 

Dean puts in a R.E.M tape, although he will deny it if anyone asks. His dad always hated the band, thought it was too soft and crooning, just the wrong side of pop-rock. 

Dean played _Losing my Religion,_ for Cas once, cliché as it was, and Cas had just nodded and said "Yes" when Dean asked him what he thought. So Dean put on _Automatic for the People,_ and Cas had gripped his hand tight for the entire rest of that drive. 

A lot of Dean's music is tied up in memories of Cas now, which is a big neon warning sign Dean doesn't need. Cas is there in REO Speedwagon the first time they went through a Taco Bell drive through, complaining that this was _not_ Mexican food. He's there in Creedence Clearwater Revival, insisting that he can provide a Tibetan throat singing accompaniment to _Bad Moon Rising_ , Dean laughing so hard he nearly falls out of the parked car at an outlook somewhere in Colorado. He's there in the albums they've had sex to - unplanned soundtracks for the most part, just the music Dean puts on for background noise in his room where one thing leads to another. Cas has ruined Queen for him for life. He can't hear _Another One Bites the Dust_ without flushing at the memory of his own voice moaning out Cas' name. 

Of all things though, it was The Devil Makes Three playing that second time with Cas. They were in the middle of a hunt, something that turned out to be a series of possessions by some ancient Mesopotamian spirit, and Dean had found an abandoned house a couple miles out from town off an old dirt road. 

"Home sweet home," Dean had said sarcastically, spilling his bedroll onto a less-grotty bit of living room floor. "I'll see if I can get the power back online." 

Cas had frowned and made a little humming noise in the back of his throat. The light overhead flickered then blinked on. 

Dean had grinned, cheered up by not having to risk electrical shock for the ability to plug in his phone, and clapped Cas on the shoulder. "Knew we kept you around for a reason, buddy." 

It had been almost a month since they'd slept together and things were still a little strained, so Cas hadn't made any retorts back about his heavenly powers being reduced to electrician tricks, just gave Dean a little tired smile and nodded. 

Dean had plugged in his phone and put the music app on shuffle while he cooked them dinner. It was the lowest quality sound and definitely not how music was supposed to be heard, but Dean had gotten spoiled with his vinyl back at the bunker and he liked having something on in the background while he cooked. 

Cas didn't _need_ to eat, but he didn't turn down Dean's cooking. Just said "Thank you, Dean," when Dean pushed a plate of chicken teriyaki and sautéed vegetables in front of him. They stayed at the old kitchen table going over case files for a while after dinner, the evening already running into pitch black night. 

Dean drank a glass of whiskey while they worked, his heart hammering as he skimmed over missing persons reports and news articles about crop failings. It was the first case they'd taken together, alone, since the night they'd spent in Dean's room. Sam had been caught up in a Men of Letters thing, and it wasn't far from the bunker, and Dean had kind of… he'd been kind of hoping Sam would stay behind. 

It was late when Cas looked up from intensely studying a book on local lore obtained earlier that day from the town's historical society. "You should get some sleep," he said. There was nothing flirty or suggestive there, just Cas being earnest. Cas being a good friend. 

"Yeah," Dean said. "I probably should." 

He wasn't tired. He was jittery and needy. 

_Old Number 7_ came on as Dean threw back the last of his whiskey and he smiled to himself. He got up and stretched, and he didn't miss the way Cas' eyes flicked briefly to his torso and away again. 

_When I grew up fast I guess I grew up mean_

_There's a thousand things inside my head I wish I ain't seen_

_And now I just wander through a real bad dream_

_Feelin' like I'm coming apart at the seams..._

Cas got up too, stacking the case files, trying to make order out of the chaos of Dean's personal, inscrutable filing system. Dean wasn't even tipsy. The warmth in his stomach wasn't the Jameson. Honestly, the whiskey at this point was just an excuse. 

"Cas," Dean said. 

Cas straightened from the table, empty-handed, one eyebrow raised. "Look, I've just put them in order by date," he said defensively. "Surely that's simpler than whatever you're doing." 

Dean didn't tell Cas that he put the information together based on patterns, on the relationship of clues, on gut feelings that had developed over decades of doing this. He didn't tell him off at all. 

Dean attacked Cas instead. He grabbed his shoulders, yanked him in hard, mouth and hands all force and ferocious desire. Cas caught on quicker this time, his first muffled noise of surprise against Dean's mouth melting into him, turning to kissing, turning to open mouths and Dean biting Cas' lip, and Cas' tongue pressing a little too eager into him. 

_So I'm watching as his wings spread as wide as could be_

_Come on now and wrap them around me_

_Cause all I want to do now is fall to sleep_

_Come down here and lay next to me..._

Dean slid his arms from Cas' shoulders to his waist, pulling him into the line of his own body, matching them up. 

He liked the way Cas felt against him like this, the surprising warmth of him, the outsized power coiled taught in this human body. He liked Cas hesitantly mimicking him, biting Dean's lip gently at first, then harder when Dean made an involuntary little wanting noise in response. 

They eventually toppled onto the bedroll in the living room, half-undressed, fingers finding skin and desperate to touch. Dean kicked the roll out flat impatiently so they wouldn't have to do this directly on the highly suspect floor. Music was still playing in the kitchen, but Dean couldn't hear it over the blood in his ears. Making out with Cas was almost like fighting. They pulled hard at each other, Cas apparently having lost his uncertainty and roughly tugging Dean's jeans down around his knees. Dean kicked them the rest of the way off and nearly ripped Cas' undershirt yanking it over his head. It ruffled Cas' hair even more than usual, it was adorable, God, Cas was… Dean didn't know the words. Beautiful? Hot? Angelic? 

It was cold in the old house, but by the time they were both naked the heat between their grinding bodies was already beading sweat on Dean's chest. Dean got an arm under Cas' back and flipped them, a reverse of his fighting moves, so that he was pulling Cas on top of him. Cas' eyes got wide as Dean awkwardly wriggled one leg free so that Cas fell into place between his thighs. 

Cas looked like he was about to _talk_ about it, so Dean pulled him down by the back of the neck, kissing him hard, trying to put a lot of unsaid desire into the way he arched up against Cas. And Cas, surprisingly, seemed to understand what was being asked of him. 

"Are you sure?" Cas managed to get out, escaping from Dean's mouth just long enough to breathe out the words. His fingers were already reaching down to touch Dean, already finding that point of heat and rubbing tantalizingly against it. 

"Yeah," Dean said, pulling him back down. "Yeah." 

From how things went from there, Dean was pretty sure that Cas must have watched a bunch of porn, or at least read about technique or something, because _Christ._ No way he just knew what to do with his fingers and tongue like that. 

The thought of Cas watching porn as homework, of him studying just in case Dean wanted to do this again, was both hilarious and endearing. 

Dean found himself mumbling Cas' name, one hand pulling his hair, one digging his nails into his own palm. It had been a long time since he'd done this, he never let himself do this, it was too complicated, too rife with triggers. But it was _Cas_ and Dean _wanted._

Cas looked just as broken as he moved in Dean as he had the first time. There was unabashed wonder in his face as he took him, pulled Dean's hips up to his, stared with that cracked intensity into Dean's face. Cas looked at Dean like he was the most beautiful, unfathomable creature he'd ever seen. Cas looked at him like it was taking every last ounce of his self-restraint not to say everything he was feeling. 

It was the most vulnerable Dean had ever felt around Cas. Cas' expression, the feel of him, letting Cas' weight pin him down without fighting it, letting him take control of their bodies, letting Cas have him, fuck him, mumble into his ear that he was "incredible. Dean. You are incredible. You are the most unbelievably beautiful man I have ever met."

Dean had been lost in it by then, and Cas' words did things to him, like he almost believed them, his hands scrabbling at the small of Cas' back to push him closer, his own voice mumbling back "Harder, Cas."

Dean had begged in the end, in the sweaty pheromone haze of pleasure and pain, Dean had broken and whimpered nonsensically "Please, Cas. Please. I want you, I want you." 

And that of course had broken Cas in turn, their mutual orgasm as improbable as anything else about the situation, Cas panting above and Dean with his head tipped back, fingers and toes curling below. 

Dean had stayed flat on his back breathing hard, but he'd let Cas curl around him, put a hand up to the warmth of Cas' arm wrapped over his stomach. 

"Are you okay?" Cas whispered finally, his breath tickling Dean's ear. "Was that okay?" 

Dean had let the laugh huff out of his chest and patted Cas' arm. "Yeah, Cas, that was okay. I'm good." He'd turned his face half an inch, blue eyes too close to his own. "You good?" 

"I - of course. Of course, Dean." 

Dean turned back towards the ceiling and shut his eyes. The sweat was beginning to cool on his skin, pricking with cold, and he felt sticky and raw between his legs. He felt too vulnerable like this, naked and cold in an abandoned house in the middle of nowhere that anyone could walk into. 

Eventually, Dean dragged himself up and gathered his clothes from the various directions they'd been thrown in. He ignored the feeling of Cas' eyes on him, self-conscious as he used his underwear to clean himself up before pulling his jeans on commando. 

"Are you… leaving?" Cas' voice was almost painfully neutral. 

It toppled something in Dean's chest, the careful way Cas spoke, that he thought Dean might just walk out of there. It made Dean feel a little monstrous. 

"No, Cas, I'm not… I'm not leaving." He turned back, looked at Cas leaning up on one elbow, still naked, hair sweat-slicked, and had to glance away again, looking at the floor instead. "I just can't sleep naked, okay?" 

Cas nodded, not quite keeping the relief out of his face. He didn't point out that Dean hadn't had a problem with it the last time, presumably understanding that the bunker didn't count. Cas hesitated a moment, watching Dean traipse back into the kitchen looking for his shirt, before he started pulling on his clothes too. 

Dean turned off the music on his phone, the shuffle having switched over to AC/DC, and pulled his t-shirt back on. 

"Bathroom," he called over his shoulder to Cas. "Not bailing." 

Rather than discover what horrors lay in the dilapidated bathroom, Dean ducked outside and pissed in the bushes, rinsing his hands with a water bottle he pulled from the car, and a liberal amount of hand sanitizer. He felt a little dirty, the further he came down from what had just happened, and then guilty that he felt dirty, and then confused and frustrated that he didn't know anymore how he _should_ feel. 

The night air was cold, though, so he didn't stand around with his feelings for long, just slipped back in through the busted up backdoor. 

By the time he got back to the living room, Cas had lain back down in his slacks and white undershirt, looking uncertain there on the edge of the bedroll. Dean sighed and turned off the lights. He made his way back to Cas in the dark and flopped down next to him, close enough to feel his body heat. Cas' hand hesitantly went to Dean's hip, and Dean let himself be drawn in again, putting one hand up the front of Cas' shirt, the other up the back. 

"Your hands are freezing," Cas grumbled, but all he did was pull Dean closer, sharing his warmth. 

"Yeah, and you're going to warm them up, buttercup," Dean said, running his fingers up Cas' chest and back, pinning him between his hands. 

Cas snorted, resting his face once more in Dean's hair. He could hear Cas inhale, and Cas smelling his hair made something foreign and intimate turn over in his stomach. 

They were quiet for a while. Long enough that Dean's fingers ceased to feel like ice. He didn't take them out from under Cas' shirt though. 

"Dean," Cas said, his gravel voice low in the quiet of the house. "Can I say one thing? Please?" 

Every piece of self-preservation he had told Dean to say no, to shut him down and out, just turn off and stiff until the tenderness in Cas' voice went away. 

But Dean was sleepy and warm and still feeling vulnerable in a way that didn't exactly feel _bad._ It was something tentative, something tenuous, but it was soft and glowing in his chest. 

"Okay," he said, not raising his head from Cas' shirtfront. "Fine." 

Cas' arms cradled him even closer, and Dean could feel his breath stirring Dean's hair. 

"I _like_ this," Cas said. His voice was tentative, full of an overwhelming affection. 

It was a simple, naked truth. Nothing Dean didn't know already. Nothing Dean wasn't already expressing back with his actions. That was the Winchester way - finding other ways to say "I love you", in a home-cooked meal, in a mix-tape, in stitching skin back together. 

It took Dean too long to dredge up the words from where they seemed stuck in his throat. Long enough that Cas had probably stopped expecting a reply, long enough that Dean could have just given up and pretended to go to sleep. 

"I know," Dean finally managed to get out, the words coming out slightly cracked. He shut his eyes tight. He could practically hear Cas' thoughts rifling through his folders of Dean-related pop-culture knowledge, could tell the moment he found it and understood. Cas' hands pressed Dean tight against him for a moment and he kissed the top of Dean's head, mouth lingering. 

And if Dean had nuzzled his face deeper into Cas' chest, well, who was ever going to know? 

The R.E.M. tape runs out fifteen minutes from the bunker, the silence cutting into Dean's daydreaming remembrance. He has to shake himself a little, pull himself out of that point in time when he'd still had any softness left to him. It leaves a dull ache of absence in his gut, but hey, that's nothing new. It's just a spot he'll fill or numb down with whiskey. 

_Thank you Jack Daniels Old Number Seven_

_Tennessee Whiskey got me drinking in heaven_

_Angels start to look good to me…_

The bluegrass plays over in his head, looping the lyrics, bringing up all the same images of that night from years ago. 

The truth is that it's not just music. There isn't much in his life anymore that he can look at without seeing Cas. He'd let that happen by accident, and he sometimes thinks if he was stronger he'd have let Cas go a long time ago. For both of them. He knows Cas doesn't deserve the shit he puts him through. 

But Dean is weak, and he keeps choosing Cas over and over. And Cas keeps letting him. So round and round they go. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter Content Warnings: internalized homophobia, self-hatred, emotional abuse, past neglect, past emotional child abuse, past food insecurity, alcoholism


	6. Worthless

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Uh, so this chapter got away from me and then it just... kept going? Probably should have been broken into two, but we're here now. 
> 
> General upfront warning that the Deans use some misogynistic/ableist language/concepts. It's intentional, and definitely not meant to condone their use. 
> 
> More content warnings in end notes.

Twenty-six year-old Dean gets why this future version of Sam is so into Eileen. It's weird, yeah, because the last time he saw _his_ Sam, he was a hotheaded eighteen year-old storming off to college, but this Sam is older, quieter, carries a weight on his broad shoulders that Dean can't fully understand. Eileen seems like she balances him out, like some of that weight seeps off him a little bit when she's standing next to him. She's attractive, sarcastic, smart, funny. Okay, Dean had a moment of uncomfortable surprise realizing that she's deaf too, but Sam doesn't make a big deal out of it, so he's certainly not going to. 

They're cute together. Dean almost makes a remark about it being gross, the way they lean into each other at the table over stacks of books and papers and Sam's laptop, but he stops himself. This isn't his Sam, and as much as he feels brotherly toward the guy, he's not sure how much he's allowed to tease, or how solid this thing with Eileen is. He doesn't want to fuck anything up for them either. 

It is oppressively silent once they get to researching. Dean fidgets in his chair, drinks two cups of coffee, reads about some debauched Greek gods, pulls the loose threads in his jeans. Sam and Eileen keep glancing at each other and smiling, ducking their heads back down once they catch each other's eyes. It makes Dean feel out of place again, like a third wheel. A fourth wheel, kinda, since Cas is there too, but Cas sort of blends into the background. He is completely still except for the turn of the page or the lift of his coffee mug. It must be an angel thing, to be so statuesque. 

Dean reaches a breaking point after only an hour. He was never great at concentrating for long periods of time like this. Sammy was always better at the research part, better at school too. Dean stands up, chair scraping loud against the bunker floor. 

"Uh. Is it cool if I go for a walk or something?" Dean asks Sam. He doesn't like asking for permission, but he also has a weird feeling there's got to be some sort of code about letting time-travelers walk around out in the world. 

Sam's expression is understanding but apprehensive. "Yeah," he says tentatively. "Sure. I can come with you, don't want you getting lost." 

"Nah, man, don't worry about it. Don't want to ruin your, uh, your research flow." Dean glances at Eileen, who is watching his lips move. She offers him a smile and winks. Yeah, Dean likes her. 

"Cas? You want to come with? Stretch your wings?" Dean has the impression that Cas isn't exactly great at picking up on the social cues that two people might want to be alone together, even if he is secretly banging older Dean. It doesn't seem to have taught him much subtlety. 

Cas looks up from a parchment that seems to be written in Greek. He seems surprised, but pleased, to have been asked. "My wings are wavelengths of electromagnetic radiation that don't require physical manipulation," Cas says, matter-of-factly. "But of course I'll come with you." 

Dean blinks, trying to decide if Cas is being sardonic. The troubling thing is that he's pretty sure he's not. "Wait a second, dude. I was kidding. You telling me you've actually got wings? What, do you have a halo and a harp too?" 

Cas' flash of grief doesn't make sense to Dean, but he only says "I do not have a harp." 

Sam clears his throat. "Just keep Cas' phone on, okay? I want to be able to reach you." 

Dean grins at the brotherly concern and he claps Sam on the shoulder as he passes him. "Sure, Sammy. You kids have fun, we'll be back in a bit." 

Cas follows him out into the hall. "You're limping," he observed, eyebrows drawn together. "Are you hurt?" 

"I'd call it hobbling, but don't worry about it." Dean rubs his knee absently. "It's just crashing through time and space onto the floor in your weird devil trap closet banged my knees up pretty good." 

"I can fix that," Cas says, stepping into Dean's personal space. Dean swallows, because Jesus, this guy is way too earnest and intense. 

"It's no problem, man. Just bruises.. I've had worse. Ain't no thing." 

Cas frowns. "Please, Dean. Let me heal you." 

His face is way too close to Dean's face, but Dean doesn't move. 

"I… I don't… Really, I'm fine." 

"Please," Cas says again, and it's gentle this time. "There's no reason for you to be in pain." 

Dean has run out of reasons to deny him. He doesn't know why he feels so stubborn about it, except that pain is a consequence, one of his first teachers. It feels like cheating to erase something like this, especially something that's not going to kill him or anything. 

"I mean. Okay, I guess." 

Cas' relief is outsized for this concession. He pulls back the sleeves of his trenchcoat, and Dean was not expecting him to drop to one knee there in the hallway, but down he goes, hands already reaching out for Dean's kneecaps. 

Dean feels the flush of embarrassment heat his cheeks again and he tries desperately not to imagine Cas on his knees in front of Dean for other reasons, but it's hard not to picture it when Cas looks up from the floor and meets his eyes. 

There is a soft glow around Cas' hands and a quick burst of warmth over Dean's knees, and it's done. The dull ache is gone. Dean takes an experimental step backward, rubs both hands over his jeans. He can't feel any sensitivity there at all. 

"Jesus, Cas," he says, not quite meeting Cas' eyes as he gets back to his feet. "That's some party trick." 

Cas leans heavily against the wall for a second, eyes shut. "I used to be able to do much more," he murmurs. "I'm just glad to help." 

"Whoa, buddy, you okay? You didn't need to do that if it was going to drain you. I told you, I was fine." 

Cas heaves himself off the wall and waves Dean's protest away. "It's temporary," he says. "Where would you like to go?" 

Dean knows an abrupt change in subject when he hears one, but he lets it go. "I dunno. Out? I want to see what the world looks like in 2020. You guys got flying cars or robot service workers or anything?" 

Cas smiles a little. "Nothing like that I'm afraid. The inventions in medicine in the last decade have been remarkable though." 

Dean groans. "Cas, that is not the spirit of the game. Okay, well, let's at least walk, get some air. Or, what _do_ you have for transportation?" 

"Dean will have taken the Impala out, I'm afraid, but there's-" 

"Wait! Wait. You telling me I've still got baby?" Dean doesn't even try to hide his excitement. He should have asked about his car. He'd just sort of assumed this calloused older Dean would have wrecked her. He seemed like the type.

Cas' expression is one of an endearing sort of long-suffering. "Yes, you still have your car. There are also a number of vintage vehicles in the garage that I could not begin to name. If you'd like, though, we could take one out." 

Dean hesitates, torn with desire. It feels almost like cheating on his car, but… "Only if you promise not to tell baby," Dean says, pointing at Cas in warning. 

Cas sighs. "I promise not to tell one inanimate object about your use of another inanimate object," he says, and this time Dean can tell he is teasing a little. 

"Watch who you're calling inanimate, you freaking cherub. Let's go." 

Cas turns and leads him down the hall, their footsteps echoing in the empty corridor. "I'm not a cherub," he says mildly. "Cherubs are lower level angels, things like Cupid or-" 

"Dude." 

Cas looks back at him, hand on a doorknob. "What?" 

"You can't just drop something like Cupid being real like that. Are you serious? Cupid, like, an angelic matchmaker?" 

Cas sighs again, opening the door and holding it for Dean. "Basically, yes." 

Dean had other questions. He definitely had other questions. But he steps through the door into the garage and his jaw basically drops, everything in his head replaced by the desire to salivate over what's in front of him. 

Cas wasn't kidding about "vintage vehicles." There's a 1955 Ford Thunderbird. A 1957 Ford Fairlane. A 1955 Chevrolet Bel Air. 

There are motorcycles too, neatly lined up in rows. Some of them old enough that Dean doesn't even know the year or make. 

He knows his eyes are wide and shining like a little kid's when he turns back to Cas, and he doesn't care. 

"Cas," he says. "I think I just fell in love." 

Cas rolls his eyes and pushes him forward, towards the row of parked cars. "Pick one." 

If he thinks too long about it, it's going to take him all day, so Dean randomly selects the Fairlane. When he slides in, it smells incredible, like petrol and leather and history. 

Cas slides into the passenger seat, dutifully buckling his seat belt as Dean takes a moment just to run his hands over the leather covering of the steering wheel. He's not even embarrassed about the little whine that escapes the back of his throat, although Cas glancing at him and then quickly away brings him back to the moment. 

Dean is never going to love another car like he loves baby, but Christ, this car is cool. 

"Seriously, Cas. What the hell?" Dean says, as he finds the keys in the back of the blinders and starts up the ignition. He reverses carefully, aware of his arm flung over the back of Cas' seat as he looks behind them, just to be sure. "Is this Heaven? Did I die and go to some weird-ass Heaven with a pissed-off alternate timeline version of me?" 

He can tell from his peripheral vision as the door to the garage slides up that Cas is watching his face again and that his expression has lapsed back into a gentle sadness. 

"No, Dean. This is definitely not Heaven. Although I'm glad to think you could see it that way." 

And shit. Dean doesn't know how to unpack that. He didn't mean to imply anything about Cas in that question, although now that he's overthinking it, maybe that's what it had sounded like. 

Dean doesn't know how to undo the sad look on Cas' face, so he just hits the gas pedal. 

That's usually how he deals with things, anyway. 

Dean drives, and Cas gives him directions once Dean mentions looking for a snack. They really are out in the middle of nowhere and it's peaceful, long lines of trees and sloping grass fields, then farmlands, then the dotted houses of rural communities. Silence with Cas isn't uncomfortable. It should be, Dean thinks, as the sun comes out from behind a cloud and dapples the wheat field into stalks of gold. It should be. Instead, it's companionable. 

Cas seems just as content to look out the window as Dean is to drive. He fiddles with the radio at first, but he can't get anything but static. So he just drives, Cas' voice occasionally telling him to turn one way or another. Dean supposes Cas must be used to this, to Dean's relationship with the road. 

"So how'd we meet anyway?" Dean asks after a long stretch of quiet. 

Cas hesitates. "Well," he says. "The first time you saw me, you stabbed me in the chest." 

Dean eyes him, decides from the rueful twist of Cas' mouth that he's being genuine. 

"Did I? Why was that?" 

"You thought I was a demon. Turn left up here." 

Dean makes the turn and a sign for downtown Cawker City, KA, appears. 

"So I stabbed you. With my demon-stabbing knife." 

"Yes." 

"And I gather that didn't kill you?" 

"It did not. Take the next right." 

" _Can_ angels die?" Dean asks as they turn into the main part of the tiny Kansas town. He's thinking about the voicemail on Cas' phone, his own future voice angry with fear. 

"Yes." Cas sighs heavily. "We can die. We can definitely die." 

Dean doesn't quite have the gumption to ask Cas if _he's_ ever died. Plus it seems kind of rude, not to mention personal. And he's not about to tell Cas that he went through his phone, so he doesn't follow that line of questioning any farther. 

"What are we doing in this random-ass town, anyway?" Dean asks. They've hit the downtown block and it's pretty pitiful. 

"There's a diner here that has, as Dean has told me, 'awesome pie.'" 

Dean is sort of starting to understand why every emotion on these guys' faces is layered. He feels first the simplistic excitement he always has for good food, followed by a warm tug in his belly that this weirdo knows him well enough to suggest a place with his favorite food, that Cas cares enough about his future self to remember things like this. 

"Oh, awesome, yeah," he says. "Yeah, I could so do pie." 

The diner at the very edge of the downtown strip smells exactly right, and they have several pies displayed beneath glass that Dean agonizes over while Cas orders them coffees to go. He gets his black and Dean's with sugar, no cream. It's such a small thing for him to know, but it means something to Dean. 

"Anything else for you, loves?" The waitress asks. 

"I'll take a piece of the marionberry pie, please," Dean says, giving her the same easy smile he flashes at every waitress, before he remembers Cas is watching him. The smile falters a bit. His default, his defense, is to flirt. But it feels wrong in front of Cas, somehow. 

"Two marionberry slices," Cas says, "And… two apple, and two chocolate mousse. Please." 

The waitress smiles at him, not flirting, just amused. "You planning on a sugar coma there, sweetheart?" she says, and there's a bit of a twang to her accent. 

Cas frowns, head tilting like a freaking confused puppy. "I don't believe that's medically probable for a nondiabetic human." 

"Oh-kay," the waitress says, drawing the word out. "Whatever you say." 

Dean digs in his wallet for the small wad of cash he has in there, but Cas is already handing over a credit card. When he notices Dean's raised eyebrows, he shrugs a little apologetically. 

"It's one of Dean's. He and Sam insist I carry one ever since I had to call them to wire funds to an alpaca sanctuary, but that's a long story." 

"An alpaca sanctuary," Dean repeats as the waitress boxes up their pie. He drinks his coffee to keep from salivating all over again. 

Cas' sigh is long-suffering. "A very, very long story." 

"Okay, buddy, whatever you say." 

On Cas' advice, they take their food and coffee to go and Dean drives a little outside town to a lake. There's a park with a public pier and they sit on a bench overlooking the water to eat. 

Dean makes something akin to sex noises when he puts the first bite of marionberry into his mouth and he notices with interest how automatically flustered Cas becomes again. 

It goes against all of Dean's natural instincts not to push against that particular line of inquiry, to put on a little show and see just how interested Cas might be in the way Dean tips his head back to bare the line of his throat as he swallows his coffee or the perse of his lips as he sucks the plastic fork clean. But Sam's plea that Dean play nice is still in his head, and Cas isn't some customer or gross older dude Dean wants to mess with. 

Cas is nice, and it's not his fault that a twenty-six year-old version of his sexual partner turned up unexpectedly. He's not even flirting with Dean, at least not that Dean can tell, and if Dean's inappropriateness flusters him, that hardly seems fair to exploit. Dean's known a fair number of older guys who would have already been looking to exploit him in this situation, so… Dean reigns in his slightly pornographic enthusiasm for the pie. 

"Okay, you were not wrong, this is awesome," Dean says around his second mouthful. 

Cas smiles, all genuine pleasure. "The best pie in Kansas, from what I hear." 

Dean nods. He believes it. Nothing is ever quite as good as the memory of his mom's pie, but he accepts that that's probably nostalgia more than anything. It's still his favorite comfort food. 

"You gonna eat, man?" 

Cas hasn't made any move to open the other Styrofoam boxes packed neatly into a large paper bag on the bench between them. 

"Oh, I got the extra slices for Dean. The other Dean. I don't typically eat." 

Dean narrows his eyes. "C'mon," he says. "Not even pie? You drink alcohol and coffee, but you won't indulge in God's greatest gift to mankind since the American burger?" 

Cas' lips twitch. He digs a second fork out of the bag. "I admit, I'm fond of the ritual of drinking. Caffeine in the morning, alcohol in the evening. It doesn't have much effect on me, but I understand why people like it. It gives you something to do with your hands, something to gather around, the way people used to gather to tell stories around the fire. And I understand food can be like that too, it's just too many complex molecules for me to enjoy most of the time." 

Cas nevertheless swipes his fork into the pie in Dean's lap. Dean thinks about protesting, but the dude bought him three pieces of pie just because he knows it's what Dean likes, and it's been a long time since Dean had anyone to share things with. 

It's a depressing thought, but Dean can't wallow in it when Cas has purple smeared into the corner of his mouth like that and is looking like he is trying so hard to enjoy his bogarted bite. 

Dean doesn't quite stifle his laugh. "Okay okay, Mr. Cosmos, you don't have to eat if you don't want to. You've got some molecules on your face." 

Dean taps his own mouth to indicate and Cas licks his lips, getting most of the berry filling. Dean distracts himself from this by drinking more coffee and looking out at the water. It's pretty out here. 

Dean can't quite be sure if he's ever been here before, back in his before. He's been through a lot of cities. A lot of small towns and backwater rural communities. He's always kind of avoided coming back to Kansas when he could help it, though. 

"We should probably head back soon," Cas says, and Dean thinks he sounds almost regretful. "Sam worries." 

"Yeah. I noticed that. Did he…" Dean stops, not sure how to ask, not sure if he should. "I know y'all don't want to tell me the other guys' stories and I get that. But… my Sammy was just a kid, you know? Seeing Sam like this, I just… Is he okay?" 

Cas considers this, his eyes on the water this time, the gray light there refracting in the blue of his eyes; light on light on light. 

"Sam is one of the strongest people I know," Cas says finally. "He and Dean have not had easy lives. I think you already know that you and he have changed drastically in the last fifteen years. But relatively, under the circumstances… I think so." 

Well. That's about as good as he's going to get, Dean figures. 

"Y'all look like you need to sleep for about a year," he grumbles, scraping the Styrofoam with his finger and sucking the last drops of filling and crumbs of crust off. "I don't care that angels don't sleep. Get yourself some bee footie pajamas and a horse tranquilizer and just get some rest." 

Cas makes a little choking noise, and then he's laughing, his full smile crinkling the lines around his mouth and eyes. And maybe it's that the sun comes out again and hits Cas' face, making the idea of him being angelic afterall not seem so totally out of the question, or maybe it's that Dean is full and happy and has a drive back to look forward to, or maybe it's just the affectionate way Cas looks at him and says "Thank you for remembering about the bees." 

But Dean gets it. He really fucking gets it. He understands why older Dean is into this weird dude, who looks at Dean like he is special and good and someone that Cas wants to know. 

Dean thinks that he would very much like to make Cas laugh again. 

By the time they get back to the bunker, Sam and Eileen are making lunch for everyone. Dean notices, with the eye of someone trained to pick up little details, that Eileen is no longer wearing her jacket and that Sam's hair is a mussed. 

Older Dean stomps in shortly after they do, scowls in Dean's general direction, and steals the grilled cheese Sam just finished flipping onto a plate. 

"Eat a vegetable!" Sam calls after older Dean as he swipes an armful of books off the kitchen table and disappears down the stairs to his room. He flips Sam off without looking back. 

"I'm gonna go ahead and say that's a lost cause," Dean says, cheerfully ignoring the tomato slices and kale salad that's been set out beside the sandwiches. "Jesus, Sammy, when did you learn to cook? This is fantastic." 

Sam looks a little guilty as he finally turns off the stove top and sits down next to Eileen, a bowl of salad and half a sandwich in front of him. 

"I… had a year off a while back. Kinda picked it up then, just watched some YouTube tutorials, you know." 

"A year off? Like from hunting?" Dean raises his eyebrows, speaking through his mouthful of melted cheese. "Wait, what's YouTube?" 

Sam lets out a good-natured laugh. "Oh God, right. I keep forgetting. Not that present-day you is much better with computers, to be honest, but… YouTube is like, uh, it's this video sharing platform where anyone can just post anything. There's basically everything on it, from people just telling personal stories to bootleg movies to instructional videos on how to do stuff like cook or learn ASL or code or whatever." 

Dean frowns at him. "Okay," he says. He decides not to bring up the fact that his only experience with video sharing websites in 2005 was to find free amateur porn in front of Eileen and Cas. "So you took a year off and taught yourself to cook." 

"Yeah, more or less." Sam still looks vaguely guilty, like he's waiting for some kind of reprimand from Dean. 

"Well, makes sense," Dean says. "It's not like you ever wanted this life to begin with. I get why you'd try getting out again." They'd talked about it a little over dinner the previous night, how Dean had come to get Sam when dad disappeared and why Sam hadn't gone back to Stanford after… everything. Dean is very stubbornly not thinking about dad dying. He's holding all of that suspended in time. "So where was I during your whole Rumspringa deal? Just hunting with Cas, or...?" 

"Well. Um." Sam looks over at Cas who has gone back to his pile of reading, having politely declined the food. Cas is very obviously pretending not to notice Sam's glance for help. 

"I swear to God, Sam, if you tell me one more time that I've got to wait for the other Dean to pull his head out of his ass and tell me himself…" 

Sam grimaces. "Okay. Okay. Well, it's a really long story, but I… thought you were dead. Cas too. You'd killed this monster together, they're called Leviathan, but… don't worry about it, it's not important for now. When it died, it got sucked back into, um, this dimension where monsters go when they die. And it took you and Cas there with it." 

Jesus fucking Christ. 

Dean just stares at Sam for a moment. "And what? Cas and I were stuck there for a whole year? In monster Heaven?"

"Um. More like Purgatory?" Sam tries apologetically. 

"What the fuck, Sam. What even are our lives?" 

Sam laughs, but it's mostly humorless. 

"Complicated," Eileen says for him. "Way too complicated." 

Sam smiles at her, all sweet and full of gratitude. 

"Great," Dean grumbles into his grilled cheese. "Jesus. Good to know, I guess." 

After lunch, they get back to researching. Dean finds it a little easier to sit still now that he's had a couple of meals, but not much. He reads at the table, then in one of the comfier chairs in the living room area, then lying on the floor with his feet up on the chair, book held directly above his face. Which is how Sam finds him when he checks in again several hours later. 

"Anything interesting yet?" Sam asks, not deigning to comment on Dean's position on the floor. 

"These Greek gods sure liked to fuck, huh?" 

Sam snorts. "Yeah. Got that myself." He toes Dean's side with his boot. "We might as well take a break. Eileen's heading out, so come say goodbye and we'll fix up leftovers or something." 

Eileen hugs Dean goodbye, which is unexpected but nice. 

"Try not to get killed, and I'll see you in a couple days," she says. 

"Why do I feel like that's always an appropriate goodbye?" Dean mutters, but he smiles as he watches Eileen embrace Sam. They don't kiss or anything, but the hug lingers. 

"I like her," Dean says when Sam comes back from walking Eileen out, gentleman that he is. "She seems good for you." 

Sam sort of smiles at the floor, ridiculous hair flopping in his face. "I like her too," he admits. "Although given my track record, I don't know if I'm good for her." 

"Oh shut up." Dean rolls his eyes. "You like her, she likes you, you both already know about hunting. Don't overcomplicate it." 

Sam tries not to laugh and fails, snorting through his nose. "Oh man, you don't even know how rich that is coming from you." 

Dean can't even be upset; he's just glad he can still make this Sam laugh. He pulls a mock grimace and waves a warning finger at him. "Hey man, you might be older than me in this timeline, but I'm still your older brother, I still raised you from a snot-nosed brat. I retain all rights to sagely advice, no matter what my alternate self has fucked up." 

Sam shakes his head, smiling, and turns away to start organizing the research scattered all over the table from the day's efforts. Dean helps him put all the material they've collectively combed through into one pile and pull a few more items from the library for the next round. 

"You okay with just helping yourself to whatever's in the fridge? I was gonna make myself a green smoothie for dinner," Sam says when the books and files are arranged to his liking. 

"What the hell is a green smoothie?" Dean asks. 

"Just, you know, a banana, some low-fat yogurt, mixed greens." 

Dean stares at his brother in horror. "And you _drink_ that? Sammy. What in the world are you thinking?" 

Sam just rolls his eyes, already pulling things from the fridge. "It's good for you. You can't live off of burger and pie forever, you know." 

"Watch me," Dean mutters darkly, taking Sam's spot in front of the fridge and resolutely ignoring his brother's rabbit food. "Besides, I'm planning on dying young anyway." 

"Don't." Sam's not looking at him, staring down at his bag of mixed greens instead, but the lightness has gone from his voice. "That's not funny to me." 

Dean shrugs and turns back to the fridge, trying to decide if he should start with his leftover chicken parmesan or just go straight for his remaining slices of pie. "Whatever. Maybe this timeline's got me living til forty, but I'm not banking on that for me. I'm not even supposed to be here right now, kinda makes me even more worthless than I was in my own time." 

It's offhand, and Dean honestly didn't think anything of it, but suddenly Sam's gigantic hand is on his shoulder spinning him around. Sam looks somewhere between angry and grief-stricken. 

"Don't," he says again. "Don't talk about yourself like that." 

"What?" Dean's a little alarmed by the emotion in Sam's face and his unprecedented proximity, his hand still on Dean's shoulder. 

"You are not, and you have never been, worthless." Sam's voice is ferocious and final. 

Dean feels a hot flush in his face but he just rolls his eyes. "Jesus, relax, Sammy. We both know you've always been the brains of the family, and dad's always been the captain. I know I'm a good soldier, okay? But at the end of the day, that's all I am." 

The next thing Dean knows, Sam is pulling him into a hug, crushing Dean into his chest with those Sasquatchian arms, chin pressed to his shoulder. Dean blinks, too stunned to reciprocate at first. He and Sam don't do this. Or, they do, okay, but only when one of them has been seriously injured or something. 

"Fuck that," Sam says. "Seriously, to hell with that, Dean. You are so much more than what dad tried to make you." 

There's a hot feeling in Dean's eyes and the back of his throat for some reason as he awkwardly pats Sam on the back. "Whoa, okay, big guy," he says. "Don't make this all chick flick on me, dude." 

Sam snorts, not budging. "Shut up and hug me, you idiot." 

Dean puts his arm around this strange older version of his baby brother, an odd feeling that he can't describe twisting in his gut. The last time he saw Sam, he was eighteen and storming out into the night, leaving Dean behind with only the shreds of a family left to him. The last thing Sam had said to his face was to tell Dean that he was a pushover and a coward, yelling at Dean to think for himself, accusing him of only ever following blindly in dad's footsteps. And the last thing Dean had said to Sam… Well. He's pretty sure it was yelling back that Sam was selfish, that you didn't walk out on family. Something like that. 

The last time Dean had seen Sam was probably the worst night of his life, truth be told. 

Dean understands, distantly, intellectually, that it's been a long, long time since that night for this Sam. He gets that it's probably not something he thinks about, that he and older Dean have had years together to sort things out, to move past it, move on. 

But it's still a fresh wound for Dean. The leaving, the years of silence, losing his brother to a world that Dean will never be a part of… it still stings. It still feels like a slap in the face, like just another indictment of how worthless Dean is, that Sam could walk away like it was nothing. 

Part of it's jealousy too, yeah, sure, that Sam got out. And Dean knows it's all moot now anyway, because here this Sam is, right back in it. But Sam _left_ him. The only person who'd ever really given a damn about Dean, the kid who Dean had protected and raised, the person Dean would have given everything for, and he'd _left_. Just like mom. Just like dad had done all their lives, over and over. 

Dean's not worth staying. 

But this Sam just keeps crushing him in his arms, and he smells like off-brand shampoo and the Impala and, just, like Sammy. It's weird and a little awkward, and it makes Dean feel small. It makes him feel like there's a hook in his chest. 

"Uh. Sam. Getting kinda weird now, man." 

Sam squeezes him tight and then let's go. He looks a little sheepish and he clears his throat, glancing away. 

"Right. Uh. Sorry. Just… feels kinda like I haven't seen you in fifteen years." 

Dean clears his throat too and turns back to the open fridge door, struggling with the rising tide of emotion. "Yeah. Yeah, me too." 

Later, when the lights are off and Dean is laying there on top of the covers in the spare bedroom, when he's alone and defenseless, when there's no one to talk to and no one to see him, no book in his hands to distract him, the tide comes in. 

It crests like a wave, rolling up and up and up until he is spilling saltwater. He doesn't know it's coming until it does, letting out a soft breath as the first tear rolls all the way down his cheek. He clenches his jaw, screws his eyes shut and tries to breathe through it like pain. 

_Don't be a little bitch,_ he thinks in that callous, scalding voice in his head. 

He might as well have swallowed the sea, the way his breath breaks with it, the way his chest heaves over voiceless sobs. 

Dean cries quietly and when he gives in, he draws his knees up to his chest and buries his face in his jeans. They smell like dirt and grass and petrol. He can't remember the last time he washed them. 

Dean tries to tell himself he's crying because half of everyone he knows is dead and long gone. Because he's stuck here and might die in a few weeks. Because everything is confusing and his head still hurts and apparently this Sam just knows one of his darkest secrets and doesn't care. 

All of which is true, of course, but it's not what is making his chest ache with the pounding sea. 

Dean wants to _stay_ here. 

He wants to stay with this Sam who doesn't hate him, who seems downright _fond_ of Dean, who hunts and lives with him and has his back, just like he always did when they were kids. Dean wants this weird bunker where he feels safe, wants this home, wants the stability of it. He thinks, curled up on his side with tears squeezing past his closed eyelids, that, fuck it, he might even want Cas. He wouldn't mind, at least. He wouldn't say no, if Cas asked, if that was what he wanted, if it meant Dean could be a part of all of their lives. 

Dean can't understand his future self, how older Dean can be so blind to everything he has. How could he forget what it was like, to be this alone in the world? How could he ever take these people, this place, this sense of belonging for granted? 

Dean pounds his fist into the mattress. Once. Twice. He sniffs a couple times before abruptly sitting up and wiping his face on his flannel. 

He's not going to be like this messed up older Dean. He's _not._ He's not going to lay here, crying like a girl over it. Dean tells himself that unlike older Dean, he's just going to enjoy this while it lasts. It's more than he's had in years. Fuck it. He's not going to waste it while he has it. 

Two days of research later, Sam wanders into the living room where Dean is once again laying on the floor and older Dean and Cas are sitting conspicuously close to each other at the table. 

"I've got a case," Sam says. "Possible vamp nest, within driving distance. We could be in and out." 

Dean shoots up from the floor. "Thank God. I mean, don't get me wrong guys, I love what you've done with the place, but I am dying to get out and work." 

Older Dean shoots him a glare. "You're not coming," he says. 

"Yes, he is," Sam says, before Dean can fire back. "Dean. Christ. You know we can use any help we can get clearing out a nest. Don't be a dick." 

Older Dean turns his scowl on Sam, but its heat is gone and he drops his gaze back to the scroll in front of him, looking like he's trying to set it on fire with his mind. 

"We can do this today if we head out now," Sam says, checking his phone. "So everyone grab what they need, we'll leave in fifteen." 

Dean trots after Sam as they all break. "You guys got a machete I can borrow?" 

"Yeah, obviously." Sam looks at Dean and stops. "Oh," he says. "Clothes. Dude, you should have asked for clothes days ago. Geez. Go take whatever's clean in my room, I'll handle the gear." 

Dean is used to clothes being a size too big on him, and there's something deeply comforting about borrowing Sam's clothing. They always used to share when they were younger. He takes a moment to look around Sam's room, at the neatly made bed and scattered books. There is a TV on the wall, but not much in way of personal effects or decoration. 

They all meet back in the living room, Sam with a duffle bag slung over one shoulder, and file down to the garage. Dean breaks into an automatic grin at the sight of the Impala, and he runs his fingers over her sides in greeting. It's weird to get in the back seat. If it were just Sam and Cas, Dean would have asked to drive, but he knows a lost cause when he sees one. Older Dean shoots him a look in the rearview mirror that is almost a challenge. Dean gives him his most winning smile, knowing older Dean will recognize it for the false charm that it is. 

At least older Dean's taste in music hasn't changed much. He puts on Led Zeppelin against Sam's protest, and Dean leans his face against the window as they drive down the long Kansas roads. 

The land in Kansas is flat, only gentle rolling hills to break up the line of horizon at the end of a long road, and Dean is lulled into something that is not quite sleep by the contented feeling of being back in his car with his music, Sam and older Dean bickering good-naturedly in the front seats about music and food, Cas across from him staring out the window in contemplation. This feels like home too. It feels good. 

They stop mid-afternoon at a diner in Illinois called, simply, "Ma's", which older Dean insists has incredible burgers and Sam insists older Dean likes because the owner remembers them and always gives them extra fries and free coffee. 

They seat themselves at a booth, older Dean and Cas on one side, Sam and Dean on the other, and with the leisurely pace of a slightly grungy small town diner, a waitress eventually appears, already carrying four mugs and a carafe of coffee. Her smile reaches her eyes as they land on Sam and older Dean. 

"Well hello! Haven't seen you boys in a minute. You back on the road for work?" 

"Yes, ma'am," older Dean says, and his flash of charm is more genuine than usual. "Insurance claims don't file themselves." 

The waitress snorts. "If you three are really auditors, I'll eat my apron," she says. "What can I get for you? The usual?" 

Her eyes land on Dean and widen, her lipsticked stained mouth falling open. "Now hold on just a minute. Who's this? I know you ain't old enough or honest enough to have a son his age, Dean, have you two been keeping another brother secret from the girls in town?" 

Older Dean is obviously trying not to show his displeasure at the situation, so Sam chimes in. 

"This is our cousin, uh, Damian. Damian, this is Rhonda. She makes the best coffee this side of the Mississippi." 

Rhonda is saying something like "pleasure to meet you," and Dean is vaguely aware of his own voice responding, but his whole body has tensed and he suddenly feels trapped in the booth, stuck behind Sam. 

_Is Damian your real name?_

_Why? You wanna call me something else, cowboy?_

But Sam doesn't know about that. Surely he doesn't know. He can't know. Dean would never tell him, no matter how much has changed in their lives, he'd never burden Sam with _that._

As Rhonda leaves them with menus, Dean glances across the table and when older Dean meets his eyes, he knows that for once they are on the same wavelength. Older Dean is hiding his reaction better than Dean, but his shoulders are hunched. He glances at Sam, then back, and shakes his head slightly in answer to Dean's unasked question. Dean relaxes a little and glances at Cas, but he doesn't seem to have noticed anything either. He's frowning at the menu, both hands wrapped around his off-white mug of coffee, and Sam is saying something about "egg-white omelets". 

Dean pulls himself together enough to say "Order a burger like a man," at the same time as older Dean. They look at each other, and Dean thinks his other self's mouth quirks just the tiniest bit upward. 

So at least that's progress. 

When Rhonda comes back, Sam orders some sort of chicken salad thing, both Deans get the same burger - because of course they do - and older Dean adds "and a cheeseburger for trenchcoat here, rare as you can make it." 

Rhonda makes a little tutting noise and says, fondly, "One day you're gonna drop dead in my diner from a clogged artery and we might finally make the local news." 

When she's gone, Dean shoves Sam and says "move. I'm gonna hit the head." 

As he passes on his way to the bathroom, he is pretty sure he catches a glimpse of older Dean's hand resting on Cas' leg under the table. 

The two of them really are the worst. 

Dean takes a piss, washes his hands, and splashes cold water on his face. He takes stock of himself in the mirror, assessing the face looking back at him, trying to contrast it with the other Dean. He's never felt so goddamn young. Older Dean is almost old enough to be his father, and Sam isn't far behind, and he definitely can't think of his baby brother as a paternal figure, but it's weird. It's all fucking weird. 

It's been a long time since Dean hustled. He can't imagine doing it again at this point, not when he can skate by on stolen credit cards and pool money, but he doesn't trust his future self enough to be sure. The old alias had clearly still rattled older Dean too, decades later. 

Dean tries to see "Damian" in the mirror, that falsely self-sure and cocky kid who was all wide eyes and hollow-cheeked, all freckles and sharp hip bones, mouth wet, parted, and willing. 

Just a body, Dean thinks. Just usable parts. 

What else was he supposed to do, anyway? 

Dean wipes his hands on his jeans - Sam's jeans which hang a little too long over his boots - and heads back to the booth. 

He's not going to sulk. He's going to be something more than this. 

The burgers are stunning. The food is almost good enough to make Dean forget by the time they've paid and are walking out the door to the impala. Then Sam slings his arm over Dean's shoulders and says, half-laughing, "Well 'cousin Damian,' what do y-" 

"Don't call him that," older Dean snaps, turning around abruptly. His fists are clenched at his side and he looks a little murderous. It's almost… protective. 

Sam blinks, taken aback, and lets go of Dean to hold both hands up. "Whoa. I was just joking. Chill." 

"Whatever," older Dean mutters, but his shoulders are still hunched as he stomps back to the car, Cas trailing after him. Dean watches Cas put a hand on older Dean's back, leaning in to say something, and he's grateful for some reason to see that older Dean doesn't shake him off. 

Sam has paused outside the diner doors, looking bewildered. "What did I do?" 

Dean scuffs the toe of his boot against the pavement, hesitating. "It's nothing, but maybe, uh… maybe just don't bring up that name, okay?" 

"What, Damian? Why?" 

"Just… he's just someone I think we'd rather not remember, okay?" 

"Dean, I have literally never heard you say that name. Who the hell is Damian?" 

Dean meets Sam's confused and worried face and for all the years and wrinkles, Dean is still protecting his little brother. He's still doing his job. 

"Just a bad memory. Look man, trust me, you don't wanna know. Just… it's nothing that matters now. Just let this one go, Sammy." 

Sam narrows his eyes in a way that makes Dean suspect he's carefully filing this information away for future use, but he nods. 

"Okay. Sure. Sorry." 

Cas has taken Sam's place in the passenger seat, but Sam doesn't complain, just climbs into the back with Dean. The atmosphere is a little tense as Dean pulls out of the parking lot and back onto the road, no one speaking. Then Cas, rifling through the box of cassette tapes, puts one in, and it's… 

" _No,"_ older Dean says, hitting the eject button quickly. "Absolutely not." 

"Dude. Was that Enya? Do you have a freaking Enya tape in your car?" Dean is torn between horror and amusement. 

"It's mine," Cas says, perfectly neutral. "I don't see what's wrong with it. She has a lovely voice." 

Sam is having a fit of silent giggles in the back, looking like he is trying really hard to stay quiet so as not to hurt Cas' feelings. 

"Man, that is so messed up," Dean mutters. "You cannot play Enya on a road trip on your way to kill vampires, in a car full of dudes. What next? Sarah McLachlan?" 

Older Dean snorts, catching his eye in the rearview again. "He likes Celine Dion. Like, unironically." 

"Hopeless," Dean says. 

Cas doesn't seem offended by their disgust at his musical choices. He just sighs and exchanges the tape for a Queen album. Dean notices older Dean's hand tighten on the steering wheel and the glance he throws at Cas, but neither of them says anything. 

They're in the last hour of their journey, Dean and Sam both half-asleep in the back, older Dean and Cas talking quietly up front under the music, when Dean hears Cas say "What? I like past you." 

"Hey," older Dean says, a little too sharply. "Don't be an asshole." 

"I'm just saying, you didn't like the future version you met of yourself either." 

"Yeah, well, 'Apocalypse Me' was a dick." 

"He was you, Dean. You just didn't know what he'd been through, the choices he had to make to survive." 

"Okay, okay. Shut up." 

Dean catches, through one cracked eyelid, Cas' hand ghosting across older Dean's shoulder. 

Seriously. The _worst._

They park about three miles down the road from the abandoned farmhouse that Sam's contact tipped him off about. The plan isn't much of a _plan._ They'll case the place, see if they can get a body count, then Older Dean and Cas will go in the front, guns blazing so to speak, and Dean and Sam will sneak round the back for an element of surprise. 

It's a little looser than Dean would like, but everyone else seems comfortable, like this is a normal, low-risk outing they're taking, so Dean sure as hell isn't going to act worried. Anyway, it's not like he hasn't dealt with vamps before. He and dad have cleared out a couple nests themselves, and he's taken the heads off a couple lone bloodsuckers. 

They tramp through the woods together until they come to the gentle slope that rises above the overgrown farmyard. There is a burnt out shell of a barn, nothing but ash and black timbers, and beyond it the wild grasses that have been allowed to claim a patch of land that might once have yielded some sort of harvest. The house itself looks stable enough, at least from the outside. A couple of windows are broken, and the long front porch is sagging with waterlogged wood at one end, but it otherwise seems whole. It's the kind of place Dean himself might have shacked up in for a night if he was working a case in the area and couldn't afford a motel. 

"Lights on. Downstairs north window," Sam murmurs. "I think… three in that room? Maybe four." 

"Cas?" Older Dean asks. Even in the silence of the woods, they're all speaking in low voices. 

Cas closes his eyes and Dean jolts at the thrum of electricity that seems to come from him. "A dozen," he says after a moment. "Eight downstairs, four upstairs." 

"Anything nastier than usual?" Older Dean asks. 

Cas shrugs. He looks tired again when he opens his eyes. "I can't get a good read from here. Not even sure all twelve are vampires, they could have humans in there." 

Older Dean rubs at his eyes then nods, as if steeling himself. Sam sets the duffle bag down, and pulls out two sheathed machetes. He hands one to Dean, who hefts it, testing the balance. When he unsheathes it, the edge of the blade glints, shiny and sharp. 

Cas takes a third machete, but older Dean pulls out a janky looking blade that seems like something from the stone ages. It appears to be made from something like obsidian and bone. 

Dean tries very hard to tell himself that he doesn't think it's cool. It gets a bit easier when his older self points the weapon at him and says "Stay with Sam, hear? Do not go off by yourself, I do not want to pull your ass out of the fire if you get in over your head." 

Dean bristles. "Dude, I'm twenty-six," he says. "Stop treating me like I'm a fucking child." 

Older Dean just turns away and starts plodding up the rise. Cas shoots an apologetic look over his shoulder as he follows him. 

"C'mon," Sam says, clapping Dean on the shoulder. "Ignore him. Let's go." 

Dean and Sam sneak around the woods, down behind the burned out barn where soot and ash has mingled with the earth, creating patches of gray and black land bereft of growing things. 

"One last thing," Sam whispers after they creep along the side of the house and are waiting at the back door. "If things go South and Cas tells you to close your eyes, do it." 

Dean raises his eyebrows. "Why?" 

"I'll explain later. Just need you to know." 

There is a sudden crash, followed by a string of curses and screaming, which is pretty much the cue. Sam kicks the door in, and Dean follows after him as they barrel in to a dimly lit corridor. 

The house smells like mildew and curdled blood. Sam and Dean come hurtling into a dilapidated living room where Cas and older Dean have already drawn ten of the supposed twelve vampires. 

It's a motley crew, a mixture of races and gender, the youngest in body no more than a teen and the oldest a silver-haired man in a ragged traveling cloak. Sam gets a drop on a Latina woman, taking her head off with one sweep of his blade before anyone has even turned to notice the newcomers. 

Her blood sprays everywhere and Dean feels his adrenaline spike as flecks of it hit his face. 

Then half the vampires are turning away from Cas, older Dean, and the two headless bodies they've already dropped. 

The teenage girl leaps at Sam, her mouth open, fangs gleaming. A white man with a shock of ginger hair goes for Dean, and his instincts kick in. He can't get a good angle on the man's neck, so as he rushes towards him, Dean ducks away from his fist and kicks out at his kneecap. His boot connects solidly and the man drops to one knee. The machete sings clean through his neck like cutting into butter. 

Someone grabs Dean's free arm, twisting it up behind his back. Instead of trying to break free, Dean propels backward with all his might, sending his assailant crashing into the wall behind them. Dean sweeps his blade as he yanks free and turns, but the Black man in the stained overalls ducks, throwing himself to the floor and rolling. Dean is about to follow up when there's a scream from upstairs. 

Dean is closest to the stairs - he doesn't think, he never thinks. He barely hears Sam, still wrestling with the teenage girl, yelling at him to wait. 

Dean gags on the landing, that stench of curdled blood like a dead, heavy weight in the air. The old house creaks above the sound of fighting downstairs, but the screaming has stopped. Dean winces as every step crackles beneath his feet. He decides there's no point in subtlety and barges through the first door. Something heavy hits him in the face and he staggers, feels the machete wrenched from his grasp. A young man is twitching on the floor, mouth open, eyes wide and already unseeing. Blood spills from between his fingers clutched to his neck. The wood floor is already stained red from years of blood. 

Dean finds his footing and turns, body dropped into a fighter's stance, a little dizzy from the blow. 

The man now tossing aside his machete is holding a shovel in his other hand. Which explains the way Dean's head is now pounding. 

The light in the room is dim, a bare bulb flickering from the ceiling, but Dean can see that this guy is unlike most vampires he's ever come across. A patch of his right cheek, from the side of his mouth on down his neck, is twisted in the familiar shape of a burn wound. His right arm where it protrudes from his rolled up flannel sleeve is missing patches of flesh, the exposed bone blackened and charred. The skin that's left is similarly scarred.

Dean thinks about the burnt barn and connects a few dots. Not that it matters. 

"Couldn't leave me and my brood alone, could you?" The man rasps. He takes a step toward Dean, forcing Dean further into the room. The cloying scent of death is in his noise, his mouth, making his eyes water. 

"Dirty, filthy hunters. I'm gonna drink deep from you, boy." 

"Well, maybe, but your 'brood' is being slaughtered downstairs while you've been up here snacking. Good to know your priorities." 

The vampire bares his fangs at Dean, and unfortunately he's not the monologuing type. He throws his shovel aside and leaps on Dean. Dean goes down, but he's expecting it and he gets one leg free, bracing and flipping them. The vampire is faster than he's expecting and he's barely on top of him before he's being thrown back to the floor, his head connecting with a solid _thump._ A fist bashes into his face, and Dean's hands are scrabbling for purchase in the vampire's clothes, but the other man is much bigger and heavier than he is and he's pinning Dean down with his legs. 

There's a hand on his arm, and a twist and _crack!_ and Dean screams with the pain of breaking bone. He pulls himself through the dizziness of it all to lean his head up and spit into the vampire's face, because Dean Winchester is going to go down a defiant little shit until the very end. But just as the vampire wipes his spit away and leans in with hot, putrid breath between his fangs, everything goes red. 

This is because, Dean realizes a moment later, his face has just been coated in a thick sheen of blood. The vampire's head goes rolling across the floor, the trunk of his neck falling heavily, wetly, onto Dean's chest. He struggles instinctively beneath the weight, blinking crimson out of his eyes and spitting blood out of his mouth. 

Older Dean is standing there, blood spattered, weird onyx blade half-raised, looking livid. 

"Oh," Dean manages to get out. He tries to sit up. "Great. Me." And with that, he promptly faints. 

Dean has a vague, oozing sort of memory of being carried outside. He's in his own arms, he thinks, which is confusing in the pitching, dizzying blackness inside his skull. 

He thinks Cas might be there, because there's a glow through his eyelids, a glow that is soft and warm and he wants to curl towards it like a plant unfolding towards the sun, but his eyes won't open. 

"I can manage his concussion," Cas' deep growl is saying, somewhere in the ether. "But I don't think… I'm not sure I've got enough power left for both it and his arm. I'm sorry." 

"Not your fault, Cas," Dean hears himself say, which doesn't make sense because his mouth is lead. But oh. Right. There are two of him. Two too many Deans. 

"Sam," Dean manages to slur. It takes every ounce of effort to use his tongue. 

"He's getting the car. He's fine." 

There are cool fingers on Dean's forehead and his mouth falls open in a gasp as his head is filled with light, with that soft warm glow. It quiets the pounding, and Dean finds himself falling, slipping once again into the dark. 

Dean wakes up in the bunker. His first impression is of a stabbing pain in his right arm and when he opens his eyes, it's to find his arm neatly bandaged and pulled up to his chest in a sling. 

Dean closes his eyes again and mentally takes stock. His head doesn't feel too bad, considering he'd had his face bashed by the flatside of a shovel and his skull slammed into the floor. Not too bad at all. He touches his face gingerly with the fingertips of his left hand. There's a little tenderness and swelling that tells him he'll have some bruises, but, hey, nothing new there. Dean cut his teeth on bruises. 

Dean blinks a few times, then cautiously sits up. He's back in the spare room. The digital clock on the nightstand says 10:00pm, and, assuming its the same day, that doesn't seem unreasonable. 

Someone changed him into a soft gray t-shirt and black sweatpants, for which he is grateful. He's had a broken arm before - care of a wendigo hunt, 1997 - and getting dressed was always a whole ordeal. His arm aches a little as he gets up and makes his way, barefoot, out of the room and down the hall. He is desperately thirsty and more than that he needs to see Sam, make sure he's okay. Cas and older Dean, too. 

The kitchen and living room are empty, but the door to the library is open so Dean downs a glass of water and heads upstairs. 

Sam is on his laptop at the table, older Dean is leaning moodily against a wall, and Cas is in among the shelves looking for something, when Dean walks in. They all turn to look at him in varying degrees of surprise. 

"Dean," Sam says, half-rising. "I didn't think you'd wake up for hours. How are you feeling?" 

Sam has a few scratches on his face, but he otherwise looks unhurt. The knot of worry in Dean's chest loosens, the relief a warmth he didn't know he was missing. 

"I'm fine, Sammy. You good? Everyone else okay?" 

Sam sinks back into his chair. He looks bone-weary, but he nods. Older Dean has a bandage wrapped around his right knuckles and a bruise on one cheekbone, but he's back to actively glowering at Dean, so Dean thinks he's probably fine. 

Cas, who has emerged from the shelves to peer critically at Dean, looks entirely unscathed. His blue eyes rake over Dean, full of a deep concern that Dean is just… he's not used to this much care and attention from anyone. 

"I'm sorry about your arm, Dean," Cas says. "But you had a bad concussion that felt like more of a priority. I should be able to mend the bone by morning though." 

"Hey, not your fault, man. Thanks for the head stuff. Don't worry about it. I've had worse. Uh." Dean swallows his pride and looks away from Cas' intense gaze to meet his other self's burning stare. "And thanks. For, y'know." 

"Don't _thank_ me," older Dean spits out, straightening up from the wall and taking a step towards Dean. "I told you. I fucking told you not to go off -" 

"Hey, what would you have done?" Dean snaps back, because he knows, of course. "If there was a chance I could have saved that guy upstairs -" 

"But you didn't, did you?" Older Dean's voice is raised now. "You didn't save anybody. All you did was mess up and nearly get yourself killed by some fucking crippled vamp -" 

" _Dean_ ," Sam says sharply. 

"Because you couldn't follow a simple fucking direction," older Dean continues as if Sam hasn't spoken. He's yelling outright now, his hands balled into fists, and Dean can see where his knuckles have cracked open again and begun to bleed through his bandage. 

"I knew we shouldn't have brought you, you can't even handle a goddamn vamp nest without fucking up an order. We don't need another liability, you useless son of a -" 

"Dean, _stop."_ It's Cas this time. He actually steps forward, half in front of Dean, like he's ready to defend him. There is a note of steel in his voice. "Don't speak to him like that." 

Older Dean stops in his tracks, tearing his eyes away from Dean to stare at Cas with disbelief and rage. He looks between them and his eyes narrow. Dean doesn't like the horrible little smile on this other Dean's face. He doesn't like to think that his own face is capable of that much twisted up pain. 

"Seriously?" Older Dean asks Cas. His voice has dropped, but it's deadlier now. " _Seriously?_ " he gestures at Dean. "Fine. Do whatever you want with him. I don't care." 

Dean doesn't like the inflection in his voice, the insinuation there. 

"Dean," Cas says again, sounding tired this time, but older Dean shakes his head and pushes past him, storming out of the library. 

There's a moment of silence in which Dean realizes he's curled his good hand into a fist, nails digging into his own palm. When he makes himself let go, he finds his fingers are shaking. 

Cas moves away and slumps down into one of the chairs, putting a hand over his face with a deep sigh. Dean feels guilty, and also grateful, and he doesn't know how to express that so he turns away. 

Sam's face is that deep, complicated kind of sad again, but he meets Dean's eyes at least. "Hey," he says. "I'm… I'm sorry about him. Let's…" he glances at Cas, with this look on his face that tells Dean he doesn't quite know what to say to the angel either. "Let's, uh, go back downstairs, get you some pain meds now that you're up." 

Dean nods. He's not sure he's capable of speaking at the moment. 

Sam closes his laptop, sighs, and clasps Cas' shoulder briefly as he walks by. Dean follows Sam out, down the stairs, then down another hallway into what seems to be an old-fashioned type of infirmary. 

Dean sits down on one of the cots, thinking dully that this is probably a bit like being on a military base, while Sam roots around in a cabinet. 

"Hm. We've got some only-just-expired codeine or in-date oxycodone. You want to get knocked out?" Sam shakes the bottle at him, forcibly trying to lighten the mood. 

Dean's thinking about the militaristic quality of the bunker, about dad, with his military training and his military discipline. He's thinking about fucking up, over and over again, about dad threatening to leave him behind if Dean didn't get faster, tougher, man up. About how he _was_ a liability tonight, the only one of them to get really banged up, and these men don't need him, he's worse than useless here, and how he should have known, what's wrong with him that he didn't think about his orders, he's supposed to follow orders, it's the first lesson he ever had beaten into him, and… 

"Dean, hey." 

The cot creaks and tilts under Sam's weight as he joins Dean. He slings an arm over his shoulders once again, like this is a normal thing. Like touch isn't reserved for fistfights and near-death experiences. 

"Look," Sam starts, but then doesn't say anything. 

"What the hell is wrong with me?" Dean manages. "Future me? Am I always like this? Is this what I become?" 

"It's… look, don't let what Dean said get to you. You know that wasn't about _you_ , right? Or, I mean…" 

"'Course it was about me," Dean snaps. "I mean, Jesus, if I grow up and hate who I was so much, then maybe I'm just-" 

"No. I mean, what Dean - other Dean - said, that was about dad. You get that, right? Your fucked up relationship with dad, and never feeling good enough for the old man. Dean is just… it freaks him out having you here, because I think it puts him right back into the headspace he was in at your age. Following dad around, you know. But it's been years since Dean stopped following anyone's orders, and you know what? You're a better hunter than dad ever was. You're a better man than him." 

"Sam…" 

"No, shut up, I mean it. And I mean you as you are right now, as well as in your future. I've always known that. I always looked up to you, you know? Wasn't great at showing it, but I did. I do. You're a man who saves the world, Dean, more than once. You're just also a self-deprecating bastard." 

Dean closes his eyes and he is going to blame the tears on his broken arm and almost dying. He wipes at his face angrily, mortified to be _crying_ in front of Sam, especially this older, more experienced Sam who apparently does not share any of Dean's allergies to feelings. 

"And besides," Sam goes on, tactfully pretending not to notice Dean wiping his face. "I think Dean was scared. He might not give a shit about himself, but it's always his responsibility to take care of everyone, and you might be a version of him, but you're alive and separate and he feels responsible for you too. So he freaked." 

Which. Okay. Dean can focus on that a lot more easily than Sam's words about dad. Being responsible for the people around him, that's something he knows. 

"What the hell happened to me, Sam?" 

Sam drops his arm from Dean's shoulders and leans forward, face in his hands. Dean thinks he's going to blow him off again, but Sam lets out one long, weary sigh. And he starts to tell him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter content warnings: internalized homophobia, misogynistic language, ableist language, canon-typical violence, death of non-humans, blood and gore, emotional/verbal abuse, mention of past emotional abuse and implied past physical abuse, mention of past sex work (implied underage), self-hatred, injury, use of non-prescribed pain meds


	7. Nothing gold can stay

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Plot! This chapter contains some actual plot!  
> (Don't worry, it still has smooches and angst) 
> 
> If I haven't replied to your comment yet, please know that I read and appreciate all of them, and that I always have every intention of replying... it's just that I am an easily overwhelmed starfish, and the tide is out, if you know what I mean. 
> 
> Content warnings in end notes.

It takes forty-one year-old Dean five minutes of repeatedly punching his bedroom wall with his left hand, his skin splitting open over his knuckles to match his right hand, and another ten minutes of deep measured breathing, to calm down from the fear and rage. It takes a ten minute shower, blood washing away down the drain from both hands, for the shame to set in. 

Those were John's words in his mouth. Dean knows exactly how hard they must have hit, knows what it felt like at twenty-six to never be good enough. 

And orders… Dean could laugh at the cosmic irony there if it didn't make him feel so sick. He remembers when they first met Chuck Shirley, when they thought he was a harmless, dorky little writer who didn't know they were real. Chuck had bemoaned how he had killed Jessica, all for the sake of symmetry in Sam's storyline. Dean can't help thinking of everything in terms of plot these days, in literary analysis, trying to see Chuck's next move. There's a certain kind of symmetry in Dean's storyline - from the soldier following dad's orders, to the rebel fighting against the ordinances of God. Maybe, in some ways, this is what Chuck wants. He built Dean, after all. Maybe he's been shaped for this just to give God's show a fitting end, a fully realized character arc. 

Dean is ashamed, too, of the way he spoke to Cas, of the hot twist of jealousy in his gut that Cas was defending his younger self. There's too much to unpack there: the painful fear he's been trying to squash that Cas and Sam will realize that younger Dean is a less fucked up version and want to keep him, the pang of envy that Cas might want his younger self and that younger Dean might even be capable of wanting him back, and the unbearable feeling Dean has when he thinks about what it might have been like if he'd met Cas when he was younger. 

Dean thinks, in a part of his brain that he does not allow himself access to in so many words, that having someone love him back then in the way that Cas does now, having someone care about him and want to protect him, he thinks it might have saved him. Cas was always going to save him, Hell or not. 

Dean turns off the water, grabs his towel and rubs vigorously at his skin. Like he can scrub any of this away. The mirror is still blessedly fogged up, and Dean escapes the bathroom without having to confront his own image. He hates looking at himself anyway. 

Dean's relationship with his body, with his face, with the corporeal reality of him, has always been a little fraught. Nothing in recent years has helped. Half the time, it feels like Dean's body isn't really his anyway. Either it's being possessed or occupied or turned by something else, or it's being wanted and used by those things. 

Dean's body has never really been his. John taught him that, long before Dean was supposed to be the sword of Heaven, before he let Michael in, before he was a demon, before he took the Mark, before he'd ever sold his body to someone else's pleasure. 

John had molded Dean into a weapon before Heaven ever came calling. Dean learned young that pain didn't matter, that his best and only purpose was as a tool. That was his job. 

Dean has moved past that a little, maybe. Sometimes he feels like he has, like maybe he has some meaning in _being_ , some value that goes beyond the callouses and the body count. Like maybe he deserves _something_ from this life, even if he’s never been able to name what that is. 

Sometimes when Cas touches him, he even feels it for what it is, is present enough to feel that ache for connection. Sex is such a toss-up for Dean. Sometimes it's a grounding thing, a way to be physically present, to be with someone, _to be_. And then sometimes he's not there at all, out of body, dissociated out to another dimension that transcends flesh. For a long time, he refused to let it be that complicated. Hooking up was part of being "a man," and it was something he was good at. And when he was there, he liked it, of course he did, it was just… his body isn't his. 

Red rivulets of blood mixed with water spill down the backs of Dean's hand and he numbly dries and rewraps them. He puts on clean underwear and jeans, pulls on a black t-shirt and a red flannel that might belong to Sam. They don't have clear boundaries around clothes. Or anything else, really. 

Dean is aching and lonely, and he doesn't deserve comforting, he was an asshole, he knows that. This thing with his younger self is opening wounds he thought had healed, and then he'd almost gotten himself killed, and his past self might piss him off but Dean is so tired of the people around him dying. He's so tired of burning bodies. 

He's so tired of being left. 

Dean tries to settle in his room, but he can't concentrate on reading, can't stand looking at his phone, can't even think about sleeping. He cleans his guns, although they don't need it. He flips through his albums, but nothing sounds right, nothing will reach that spot in him that needs release. It's anger or self-hatred or both, and Dean wants to punch things or get punched. He's so tightly wound he feels like anything could snap him and he just… he needs… 

Dean slips out from his room and pads back up into the living room. The lights are off except the one still burning in the library. Dean braces himself and heads back to the scene of his crime. 

It's just Cas sitting in one of the chairs, thumbly idly through an old Greek text. The shadows under his eyes seem to be getting deeper, more human, by the day. He blinks up at Dean, frowns, and looks back at his book without speaking, a slight clench to his jaw. 

Fair enough. 

Dean wanders over, plucks the book out of Cas' hands, and pulls him to his feet. 

"Dean -" Cas starts, looking wary, but Dean just leans his forehead into Cas' shoulder, slumping into him, and Cas goes silent. 

"M'sorry," Dean mumbles into Cas' shirt. "I shouldn't have yelled." 

There is a moment where a tiny part of Dean is expecting Cas to push him away, the way he's always waiting for his bullshit to become too toxic for Cas to tolerate. But Cas is too good, too understanding. He is forgiving even when Dean is unforgivable. 

Cas' fingers thread into Dean's hair, stroking him, all soft affection, and Dean breathes out in a quick huff of air. He wraps his arms around Cas' waist and pushes his forehead against his shoulder, like he can burrow deeper into his warmth. 

"It's not me you should apologize to," Cas says patiently. 

"Yeah. Yeah, but no, it is. I'll talk to him tomorrow, okay? But I… I just…" 

Cas' free hand finds the line of Dean's spine through the layers of his shirt and his fingers trace along it, stopping to press flat against his lower back. 

"This is hurting you, having him here." It's not a question. 

Dean swallows. He thinks if he talks about it while Cas is holding him like this, holding him together, he might cry, and he really doesn't need that right now. 

"Can we just… not psychoanalyze me right now? Can you just come to bed?" 

Cas' mouth ducks down to the side of Dean's head, kissing into his hair the way Cas is prone to, this thing that is so soft and sweet that sometimes it just about kills Dean. 

"Of course, Dean." 

They've been doing this long enough now that Cas has a side of the bed, that they have a standard cuddling position, which is so grossly domestic it was definitely the source of one of Dean's freakouts when he realized it. But that was ages ago, and he likes it now, when he lets himself. He likes having a pattern with someone. 

Dean strips down to his boxers, and Cas follows his lead, getting under the covers as Dean turns out the light. Cas pulls Dean into his chest, arms wrapped around him, and Dean tangles their legs together, curling his hands up against Cas' ribs, arms pinned in the heat between their bodies. 

"You hurt your other hand," Cas says into Dean's hair. Dean can practically feel him frowning. 

"Yeah." 

Cas sighs, and tries to reach for Dean's hands, but Dean swats him away. 

"Don't waste your grace. Save it for healing baby Dean, okay?" 

Cas is quiet in the way that Dean knows means he's thinking dower thoughts in his general direction. Dean kisses his collarbone, but it's not enough of a distraction. 

"Easing your suffering is never a waste to me," Cas says at last, always too earnest. 

"Yeah, well. You can't fix me, Cas." 

"You don't need fixing." 

"Pretty sure that's what you're supposed to do with broken things." 

Cas makes a frustrated noise and pulls away from Dean, going up on one elbow so that he's leaning over him. Dean can't see much in the near-absolute dark of the windowless room, but he can tell Cas is glowering at him with all the righteous contempt of an agent of Heaven. It makes Dean smile a little. He kind of likes pissing Cas off, which maybe is part of their many problems. 

"How long is it going to take to get into your thick skull that you are not some worthless, broken thing?" Cas growls. "I have been trying to make you understand your own value for eleven years, and I will go on doing it until you die, but how often have we had this conversation, Dean? Sometimes I think the very universe spins on its axis towards you, and you're too drowned in your own self-hatred to see it. Everything that you said to your past self tonight - it's nonsense. You have never in your life been reduced to nothing but orders. You have always been carving your own path, putting Sam, putting love, above -" 

Dean kisses Cas to shut him up, which may not be nice or fair, but it works, Cas' defensive anger for him sliding into the force with which he grips Dean's hips instead and the pressure on his mouth. 

"I wasn't done," Cas murmurs when Dean lets him go. 

"That's what I was afraid of," Dean mutters, pressing his mouth to Cas' neck. "You never know when to stop talking." 

"You never know when to listen," Cas gripes back. 

Dean smiles, mouth against Cas' cheek where he can feel it. “You’re cute when you’re grumpy.” 

“Thanks,” Cas says dryly, but Dean knows he’s pleased beneath their doubled sarcasm. 

Dean thinks, not for the first time, that he should probably compliment Cas more. He’s tried in the past, but the only way it comes out is sarcastic. Besides, there’s a lot of “shoulds” when it comes to Cas, too many to ever really make up at this point. He should take Cas out on an actual date, should hold his hand in public, should be open about their relationship or whatever it is they’re doing, should tell Cas he loves him with actual words. Not that Cas doesn’t know, but that’s not the point. 

And it’s not like Dean is an idiot, okay, he knows what this is. He’s known since their first night together. He knew before they ever kissed, years before. Sometimes it feels like something he’s always known, like it was printed into his soul the moment Cas touched him in Hell, but that’s washing the past with a rose-colored tint it doesn’t deserve. Dean thinks he probably first started to understand it in Purgatory, when for a while the only thing that kept him going was knowing that Cas was out there somewhere. Dean went practically feral looking for the stupid son of a bitch. He’d had a desperate, singular purpose there. It had felt as raw and pure as the rest of Purgatory. 

Things got complicated, of course, the way they always do. In some ways, Dean thinks that what happened with Benny was at least partly about Cas. Dean hadn’t let himself think in words about why he was so frantic to find his friend, hadn’t put those thoughts together into anything coherent, but then Benny had come along, and, well… What happens in Purgatory stays in Purgatory. Like war. Like prison. That’s what they’d told themselves anyway. 

It still felt like crossing a bridge to Dean. 

When he was standing on the other side, having come through Purgatory, having let go of Benny, he realized he’d opened a door back there that he never meant to touch again. Outside of stuff that happened when he was a kid, outside of his teenage odd jobs on street corners, he’d never really… Sure, Dean had exchanged a couple of blowjobs in dirty bathroom stalls in his late twenties (and he’s not going to touch the fact that it wasn’t until after John died that he engaged in these little experiments), but it made him self-conscious and like he had to hide things from Sam, so he’d sort of ruled it out. It never meant anything, anyway. 

It meant something with Benny, though. Not love, but maybe in another life it could have been. 

Dean’s not sure he would have ever figured out his crap with Cas - as much as he has figured it out, anyway - if he hadn’t been with Benny first.

The first time Dean realized it in a way that he could process was on his knees in a crypt, his voice breaking as he tried to reach Cas. 

“This isn’t you. This isn’t you.” 

And he’d known, even as Cas’ fist clenched around the angel blade came down on him again and again, that this wasn’t _his_ Cas. That the real Cas was his in a way this distant, alien creature didn’t understand. 

“Cas… Cas…” 

Blood had been dripping down the back of his throat from his broken nose, he could barely get the words out and it was his heart that was fucking breaking as Cas’ eyes went right through him. 

“We’re family. We need you. I need you.” 

It wasn’t the most romantic or appropriate time, maybe, to realize he was in love with his best friend. But it made a morbid sort of sense in Dean’s head, knowing that he was in love with this idiot just as Cas was about to kill him. He meant to say it. He tried to, but his own blood was on his tongue, and the words couldn’t quite make it out of his mouth. Maybe a subconscious part of him understood, too, how much worse it would be for Cas to hear just before he killed Dean. How it would destroy him, if he ever came back to himself and remembered. 

So Dean didn’t say it, not when Cas had beaten him to a bloody pulp, and not after. 

Cas has said it once, but that didn’t really count. He’d just come back from the dead, and Dean had been crying like a fucking kid over it, and Cas had said it all broken into Dean’s hair. 

It’s not like Dean doesn’t know too.

And anyway, as far as Dean is concerned, love and violence have a history together. He tries not to let it eat at him, tries not to get into his _feelings_ about it no matter how much Sam pokes at that door, but it's true. There is barely anyone who's ever loved Dean who hasn't also put a fist in his face. And yeah, yeah, Bobby was possessed, and for the worst times Sam had been hopped up on demon blood or was being ridden by Lucifer, and Cas was being frikkin' mind-controlled by Heaven, and dad was sometimes drunk… but sometimes he wasn't. And Dean and Sam have punched each other up pretty good all on their own. And Cas beat him up in an alleyway years before the crypt. And Dean has started some of these fights, he's deserved some of them. Even now, what he's doing here, the way he treats Cas and Sam and Jack, he knows it's too close to all the parts of John he was afraid of growing into. He wants to stop hurting his family, wishes he knew how to stop, but this freight train just keeps barreling forward and Dean gets pissed or scared or stuck inside himself, and he lashes out all over again. Not physically, maybe, but it isn't the bruises on his body Dean remembers most anyway. 

It's just… for about a decade now, Dean has lived in a near constant state of terror, anxiety, and grief. All of his tension, it lives too close to the surface these days. It seems like every other moment, they're all about to die. Every fucking time he opens himself up a little, everytime they get close to patching up the world, everything seems to go to shit. 

Dean can't do it. He can't let himself want anything more than a few hours ahead, can't think of the future beyond planning a fight. He tries to pretend that he can, for Sam, tries so hard that sometimes he fakes himself out. But it's always there in the back of his mind, that knowledge that nothing gold can stay.

Cas pulls Dean back into his chest now and Dean wraps one of his arms up around Cas’ back this time. This is how he usually falls asleep with Cas, as close as they can possibly wrap themselves up in each other. If Dean Winchester is going to snuggle anyone, he’s going to do it right. 

“Hey,” Dean says into Cas’ chest after another long period of silence has gone by. He’s getting sleepy, finally, lulled into that strange place of liminal safety that Cas gives him. “I kinda meant what I said, you know.” 

“Hm?” Cas may not sleep, but his voice is drowsy too. 

“What I said about… if you wanted to, with younger me. It’d be okay. I mean, he’s me, you know. So…” 

“Dean.” Cas sounds completely exasperated. “I have no intention of having sex with your past self.” 

“C’mon, Cas, you can’t tell me you’re not a little curious to see how flexible I used to be.” 

Cas shifts against him and doesn’t answer. Dean pokes his back triumphantly. 

“Ha! You do want to know." 

"I am completely satisfied with your dexterity," Cas says, a little frostiness not quite covering the note of embarrassment in his voice. 

"Okay, old man. You're into him. I can tell." Dean tries to keep his own voice light and level. He's not sure he's telling the truth. He thinks there's a good chance it might destroy him if Cas did sleep with his past self. He's just also starting to think that maybe it's something they both deserve to have. 

"Dean, it's not…" Cas sounds upset now, and Dean thinks maybe he should have backed down, he's already been enough of a dick once tonight, and Cas is just as weird about sex as Dean is, so it's probably a genuinely uncomfortable situation for him. The little nerd. 

"It has nothing to do with him being younger. It's like you said, he's _you._ If a future you from twenty or forty years in the future dropped into the bunker, I'd feel the same about them. He has your soul, Dean. And it's your soul that I…" Cas trails off, because they don't say it. 

Dean groans. "Cas, Jesus, I was just trying to tease you, you fucking sap. Fine, whatever. I'm just saying, I'd get it. I don't want to hear about it, but do what you need to do." 

"Please stop talking," Cas says, a little desperately, and Dean laughs. He leans into the smell and heat of Cas and closes his eyes. 

It stopped bothering him a long time ago that Cas watches him while he sleeps. 

The apology goes about how Dean predicted. He plunks a cup of coffee down in front of younger Dean in the library the next morning, clutching a second mug to his own chest and says gruffly, "Sorry. I was a dick." 

Younger Dean looks up at him warily from beneath some pretty sick bruises and nods. "Yeah. Whatever, man." 

Dean scoots the coffee closer to him, and after a moment younger Dean takes it begrudgingly with his good hand. 

"Thanks." 

And that, Dean thinks, is good enough. He starts to step away, intending to leave his past self alone with his broken arm and hurt feelings, but younger Dean stops him. 

"Look, are you ever going to talk to me about what happens to us?" Younger Dean shifts in his chair. "Sam told me some stuff last night about the last couple of years. Getting possessed by an angel, and Cas dying, and you and Cas, uh, falling out pretty bad recently over this Jack kid getting someone killed. He wanted to make you seem less like an asshole, you know. But he said there was stuff you should be the one to tell me about what happened after… after dad died." 

Dean pinches the bridge of his nose and closes his eyes for a second. He hates this. He really, really hates this. 

"Fine." Dean kicks the chair opposite his younger self out and sinks down at the table, taking a long gulp of his own black coffee. He put sugar in younger Dean's cup, because he remembers, but that's what age does to you. "What do you want to know?" 

Younger Dean looks a little taken aback, and it's the first time they've really been alone together in the five days they've both existed in this timeline. 

"What happened to you?" younger Dean asks, his eyes on his coffee mug. "'Cause I'm coming from a weekend at Bobby's in 2005, Sam and I haven't talked in years, dad and I are barely speaking at this point, and I'm still not as pissed and prickly as you." 

Dean snorts. He wants to say something stupid and mean, like that at twenty-six years old he was basically clueless, that he has no idea what's ahead of him. But of course that's the point. 

"Hell, mostly," Dean says, to get it out there. 

Younger Dean makes a little scoffing noise and rolls his eyes, taking a sip of his coffee. "Okay, very helpful." 

"No, I mean it. I'm talking about literal Hell. Fire and brimstone and everything." 

Younger Dean looks at him sharply, searching his face. "What?" 

"Yeah. For about four months of time up here. About forty years down there." 

Dean can't look at his younger self's wide eyes. He doesn't want to see the fear there. 

"So we… we die and go to Hell?" 

Dean can hear the trepidation in younger Dean's voice, but also a note of resignation, like this confirms something. Dean can't remember what he would have thought he was going to Hell for at that age - the general quality of his soul, probably, or his failures as a son, or his sometimes homoerotic proclivities. Dean's never exactly been a poster boy for biblical values. 

"It's not that simple," Dean says. He wants to tell this kid that they didn't deserve to go to Hell, but Dean doesn't really know if he believes that. 

"Sam told you about dad, right?" 

"Just that he died to save me. Us. Whatever." 

Dean sighs, rubs at his face again. It is too fucking early to be dredging up this shit. "Okay. Hold on. I'll be right back." 

Dean comes back to the library with a bottle of whiskey and two glasses. Younger Dean raises an eyebrow at him, but does not say anything about 8:00 am being a little too early to be breaking out hard liquor. 

So Dean drinks, and he tells his younger self about dad making a deal for him, because it's important to him that this other Dean understands that dad was once again showing Dean the way. What else was Dean supposed to do? If dad had loved him enough to sell his soul for Dean, then Dean sure as hell loved Sammy enough to do the same. It was either sell his soul or kill himself, although Dean doesn't say that part out loud. 

He skates over Hell, just that younger Dean cannot possibly imagine it. 

"Trust me. I spent an entire year imagining it, and I never came close to the truth of it." 

Dean throws back his glass of whiskey and refills. He tells younger Dean about getting off the rack, about breaking the first seal. He doesn't look up to see what kind of judgement is in his own eyes. He just drinks, and he doesn't talk about Alastair. He tells him instead that it was Cas who pulled him out of Hell. Tells him about waking up in that pine box, and shows him the handprint on his shoulder. Tells him about being a vessel and the whole heavenly plan. He tells him, reluctantly, about Sam. Not in detail, maybe makes it seem a bit more like Sam was tricked by Ruby, but there's no way to tell this story without at least mentioning the demon blood. 

When Dean hits the point of why Azazel was in Sam's nursery, younger Dean reaches for the whiskey bottle too. 

Dean plows through, now that he's started. He doesn't sketch in much detail, and younger Dean doesn't really ask any questions, just lets him talk. 

It occurs to Dean around the point where Sam jumps into the pit that he's not sure he's ever actually talked about his life like this. He's never been inclined to give anyone the full synopsis before. Sure, Sam knows, and Cas, mostly, but they were there for most of it. He's never actually had to say it before. 

Dean is a little bit tipsy by the time he finishes up their first apocalypse. He pauses then, not sure where to go from there. There's so much more, but a lot of it is about Sam and Cas, and he doesn't want to make this other Dean think less of them. 

He finally looks across the table and younger Dean's face is pale and drawn. He looks utterly overwhelmed. 

"Uh," Dean says. He's really not prepared to give himself any therapy over this. "So, yeah. That brings us up to about 2010." 

Younger Dean lowers his head to the table. "What the fuck," he mutters. 

"I mean, obviously Sam's alive again now," Dean offers unhelpfully. He swirls the last sip of his third glass of whiskey, watching the light catch in the amber liquid. 

"Jesus fucking Christ," younger Dean says into the table. 

"Yeah. Take your time with that." 

"You know this is crazy, right? You sound crazy." 

"And you're a time traveling version of me currently living in a secret bunker with your future self, your grown up baby brother, and an angel. So." 

Younger Dean sits up and puts his head in his free hand. "I'm not saying I don't believe you. I'm just saying it's crazy. But what about our lives has ever made sense?" 

"Cheers," Dean says, and shoots back the whiskey. Younger Dean is still on his first glass and he takes a sip. 

"How many times have you and Sam died, anyway?" 

"Honestly? I've lost count. Cas might have us both beat, although that depends on if you count the time I was stuck in a pocket dimension time loop where I died every day." 

"Dude. Like a homicidal Groundhog Day?" 

"Yep," Dean says. Then:

"I hate that movie," both of them say at the same time. 

Dean smiles a little and younger Dean hesitantly returns it. 

They are saved from filling in the remaining decade - and from Dean get truly sloshed before 10:00 am - by Cas arriving in the doorway to the library. He hesitates there, looking between them. 

"Don't hover, sunshine, come on in," Dean says. It comes out a bit of a drawl. The benefit to being three glasses deep in hunter's helper this early in the morning is that he can still think about waking up in the overwhelming warmth of Cas' body heat, can think about the sleepy kisses he'd planted on his jaw, the softness of unconsciousness letting him curl into the shape of Cas, fitting into the space around him. They almost never do morning stuff anymore. The morning is always too soft, too close to coming back to the general shit of their lives. 

Cas frowns at the bottle of Jameson on the table as he approaches. "It's 9:30 in the morning," he says. 

"It's 5:00 somewhere." 

"In many parts of Europe, right now, yes, but I fail to see how that's relevant." Cas turns to younger Dean. "I should be able to heal you now." 

"Oh." Younger Dean looks nervously at Dean, as if for permission or something. "Okay." 

Dean gets up, snags the now empty glasses and the bottle, as Cas places a hand gently on younger Dean's elbow and his grace glows softly in the room. 

Younger Dean gasps, blinks, looks up at Cas with those eyes wide and questioning, and Dean has to look away. He thinks again what it would have meant to him back then, how Cas might have saved him. He can't help his mind running over the thought again and again like the needle getting caught on a scratch in vinyl. 

As younger Dean is pulling his arm out of its sling and shaking it out experimentally, Dean says "Hey. We good for now?" 

Younger Dean looks a little startled that Dean is asking, but he nods. "Yeah. That's, uh… that's plenty to be going off of." He looks back at Cas, his smile a little less tentative. "And thanks." 

Dean leaves them there, clearing the bottle and cups, and he leans heavily against the liquor cabinet downstairs for a long minute, face pressed to the cool wood. 

It's Dean who makes their first breakthrough. He does it in the trademark Winchester way, dumb fucking luck. He's flicking idly through a brochure for an art museum in Venice, not really expecting to find anything, but not really sober enough to be reading anything more challenging. 

He nearly misses it too. There, in among a collage of pictures is a little statue with a bow in one hand and a missing nose. There's a caption underneath that reads _Statue of Xerodicus, mythological marksman favored by Apollo. Artist unknown. Marble. Circa 700 BC._

From there, things get easier. Sam adjusts his computer search to include a number of different spellings and shortenings: Cerodicus, Xerodicus, Cero, Xero, Zerodicus, Serodicus, Zero, Sero, Cerodycus…

One of the college professors Sam left a message with calls back and directs Sam to an ancient Greek playwright whose work chronicled Apollo's chosen followers. While it doesn't seem that Aristophanes has himself written directly about Cerodicus, his work references a play about a "hunter most feared" by another playwright. This leads them (well, Sam) to a play by Euphorian that supposedly depicts the myth of "Xero and the Grief of Ages" - supposedly because the text isn't online. 

Sam is making them all call college libraries, trying to get a lead on a copy, when the phone younger Dean has been using starts buzzing in his hand. 

"Uh," he says, holding the phone out gingerly. "I think you've got a text." 

Cas takes back the phone, _his_ phone, Dean realizes. 

"It's Jack. He'll be home soon." 

Sam looks up from his long list of numbers. "Did anyone tell Jack about, um, the situation?" 

They all look at each other blankly. 

"Great," Sam mutters. "So this is gonna go well." 

All things considered, it could go worse. Jack comes back into the bunker all tan from the Sierra Nevada and Mojave desert sun, and the first person his eyes land on is younger Dean. 

"What?" Jack says, mouth slightly open. The thrum of power coming from him as his adrenaline spikes makes everyone in the room wince. 

"Yeah, so Jack, this is Dean from 2005," Sam says. "We asked Crowley for help with the curse and it seems like he made a copy of past Dean. But it's really Dean, just… from before." 

Sam turns to younger Dean. "Dean, this is Jack. Jack's a nephilim - the child of a human and an angel. He's family." 

Younger Dean and Jack size each other up warily. Younger Dean glances at Sam before finally sticking out his hand, and Jack glances at Dean before shaking it. 

"How was the desert?" Cas asks, stepping in to hug Jack. Cas has gotten better at hugging over the years, but they still sort of look like two aliens who have only ever heard a detailed oral account of what human physical affection is supposed to look like. It's endearing. 

"Hot," Jack says earnestly. "Dry." 

"You feeling okay?" Sam asks, his brow all furrowed, puppy-dog eyes wide and concerned. 

Jack glances at younger Dean, then back to Sam and he says, hesitantly, "I think it helped. I'm going to go take a shower now. There was a lot of sand." 

Dean watches the way younger Dean's eyes follow Jack out of the room and sighs. They're going to have to send those two on a bonding trip or something, because Dean can tell already from his younger self's face and the friction between them that the primary emotion between the two at the moment is an uneasy jealousy. 

Because sure. Neither of them wants to be replaced. 

Dean thinks this is a workable problem, at least. He thinks he probably would have liked Jack at twenty-six, would have found him odd but funny. It could be good for both of them to have a pal. Younger Dean never really had friends, and Jack hasn't exactly had a lot of opportunities. 

While Jack is in the shower, Sam gets through to a very grumpy Italian museum curator who informs him that it is “quite too late in the evening to be entertaining the eccentricities of Americans at my home number, sir,” but does, nevertheless, promise to have a look in his archives in the morning. 

“Well,” Sam says after the curator hangs up. “That’s something at least.” He looks tired, as always, but satisfied. 

“‘Grief of the Ages,’ huh?” Dean says. “That’s encouraging.” 

“It’s a greek myth imbued with demonic energy, Dean. I wasn’t expecting a comedy.” Sam rakes a hand through his hair and sighs. They all do that a lot these days. “I suppose we’ve put it off long enough. We should probably summon Crowley back, don’t you think?” 

“I like talking to him better when we’ve got something to threaten him with.” 

“We could call Rowena first…” 

“No, no, you’re right. Let’s just get it over with.” 

Younger Dean looks up from the book of greek mythology he’s been reading and clears his throat. “Uh. So. What happens if this Crowley guy does fuse me back into the me that’s in my timeline? I mean, do I just forget this ever happened, or?” 

Sam looks at Dean, who looks at Cas. 

Cas shrugs. “I don’t know,” he says. “I don’t understand what Crowley did, so I don’t know what the limitations are.” 

“And if he can’t, or won’t, put me back?” 

“Then you’ll stay here,” Sam says, shrugging. “I mean. If you want to. I know this is all weird. But, well, kinda dangerous being a Winchester out there these days.” 

Younger Dean snorts. He doesn’t know the half of it, but, okay, Dean remembers how it felt to be a Winchester even back then. The name had meant something else, had been tied up in being John’s son, his prodigy as much as progeny. A piss poor one, really, Dean had felt at the time, but still, the world had already started to see him as the natural successor of his father’s work. Being a Winchester was one of the few things he’d really been proud of, even if it wasn’t something he felt he’d earned. 

A newly clean Jack leans against the wall of the empty room where they do their summonings, Cas next to him, filling him in on the last couple of days. Sam has redrawn the devil’s trap, reluctantly explaining to younger Dean that, yes, Crowley is a demon, and yes, he’s as likely to dick you over as to help, but he’s sort of an ally some of the time, and yes, Sam realizes how this sounds. 

Dean assembles the ingredients in the little golden bowl - the preserved fruit, the skull of a black cat, the left wing bones of a baby dove, and a few other nasty things, including a drop of Dean’s own blood as the summoner. 

When Dean recites the ritual and lights the bowl on fire, Crowley materializes in his blood-spattered apron, looking quite put out and holding the freshly bleeding head of a deer in one hand. 

“Bit busy, boys,” Crowley says, annoyed. 

“God,” Sam says, looking nauseated. “What’s that for?” 

Crowley gives him a patented condescending look. “Lunch.” 

“Never mind that,” Dean snaps, arms crossed as he levels his glare at the one-time king of Hell. “What did you do to him?” He jerks his thumb at younger Dean. 

Crowley glances over younger Dean and sniffs. “I think you’re being a tad ungrateful,” he says to Dean. “You got yourself into a mess, I provided you with a ticket out. That’s what you wanted, isn’t it?” 

“We asked you for leads on the curse,” Sam says. “Not to… to copy Dean.” 

“How did you do it?” Cas asks. “Copying a soul like that, it shouldn’t be possible.” 

“Wouldn’t you like to know.” Crowley looks Cas up and down and smirks. “Looking to build yourself a little harem?” 

“Just put him back, Crowley,” Dean says quickly. 

“Well, if you don’t want him…” Crowley’s little smile is the visual equivalent of nails on a chalkboard; it makes the hair on the back of Dean’s neck stand on end, makes him feel like his hackles are going up. Crowley’s eyes wander deliberately slowly down younger Dean’s body. “I could find a use for him.” 

Younger Dean’s fists are clenched and he looks about two seconds from socking Crowley in the face. 

Dean pulls the demon knife out of the inside pocket of his jacket. 

Crowley’s eyes narrow. “You wouldn’t,” he says. 

“Oh,” Dean says, tapping his fingernails against the blade. “Don’t worry. There are a lot of things I’d do to you before I killed you.” 

“Aren’t we past all this? I already went out once in a blaze of sacrificial glory. What’s a demon got to do to cement himself as a protagonist in your story?”

“Put him back, Crowley.” 

“I can’t,” Crowley snaps, giving it up. He sighs, drops the deer head on the floor with a sickening squelch, and reaches into the pocket on the black suit jacket he’s wearing under the apron. He pulls something out and tosses it to Cas, who catches it and looks down at the item, frowning. “It’s a one and done sort of thing. You should be thankful, I was planning to use it to clone myself for the most intensely pleasurable purposes.” 

“Disturbing, thanks,” Sam mutters. “What is that thing?”

“It’s got the Enochian word for ‘echo’ inscribed on it,” Cas says. “Some other things I can’t read. It’s all burnt up.”

“Burned up in the use of it. Always so poetic, don’t you think?” Crowley picks his deer head back up, leaving behind a smear of blood on the floor. “I got it off a witch sometime in, oh, 17th century France or so. I believe it’s called a Promethean disc in certain Wiccan circles, although the irony there is not lost on me.” Crowley looks between each of them in turn, and Dean could swear his eyes are twinkling. “My, my, but you went and got fond of him, didn’t you? What an excruciating moral conundrum ahead of you then.” 

“No one asked you for this,” Dean snaps. 

Crowley’s long, lingering gaze rakes over Dean’s body this time. “Sorry, darling. I gave you one fix. He’s an extra. He doesn’t belong here. Don’t twist your pretty little head up about it.” Crowley winks at him, an amused expression playing on his face. “If you need a distraction, for old times sake, give me a call. Otherwise, stop summoning me.” 

Crowley twists his hand, the stool in the corner of the room comes skidding across the floor, breaking through the outer circle of the devil’s trap, and he’s gone. The scent of sulphur lingers in the air. 

Dean swears, stashes the knife back in his jacket, and picks at the bandage on the back of his hand. Sometimes pain is a grounding thing too. 

“Well,” Sam says into the gaping silence. “At least we know.” 

Dean doesn’t deign this with a response, just turns away and stalks out of the room. There was a time when he would have killed Crowley for breathing - and now what? He just lets him string them along like this again? 

They had figured, in summoning Crowley the first time, that they sort of had bigger problems going on. Chuck was their common enemy afterall. Crowley could be useful when their goals aligned. But this… 

And there’s that old taunt, that _for old time’s sake_ , the way Crowley still looks at Dean sometimes like he’s thinking about what’s underneath all those layers. What happens between demons stays between demons. 

That’s what Dean tells himself anyway. 

Dean doesn’t ask for Cas that night, and he’s basically pavloved the guy to only come around when Dean asks - which is just another fucked up thing added to the pile of toxic crap Dean’s got on his conscience. It’s just another night where Dean can’t ask and he’s made it impossible for Cas to offer, so Dean spends it like any other, drinking alone and passing out fully-clothed on top of the covers like he hasn’t grown at all over the years. 

Dean almost never has nightmares when Cas is with him. He’s asked Cas about it, and Cas swears he doesn’t tamper with Dean’s dreams unless invited. Which is itself something Dean tries not to overthink; that it’s just having Cas, as a person, in bed that keeps Dean’s subconscious from falling into Hell, or the Mark, or the red vision of demon Dean, or Michael. It’s that irrational feeling of safety he gets, like he’s a fucking child afraid of the dark or something. It’s Cas watching over him. 

But Dean spends the night alone, and the alcohol runs out of his blood eventually, and he dreams.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter Content Warnings: internalized homophobia, brief reference to past childhood sexual abuse (nonexplicit), brief reference to past underage sex work (nonexplicit), past childhood abuse (physical and emotional), alcoholism, ongoing emotional abuse, sort of implied reference to dubious consent when Dean was a demon, depiction of physical violence, canon violence, canon violence with the lens of domestic abuse, trauma, suicidal ideation, self-hatred, dissociation


	8. The first law of thermodynamics

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Upfront Content Warning: this chapter contains brief reference to historical practices of pedophilia, and reference to past childhood sexual abuse. Nothing graphic. More content warnings in end notes.* 
> 
> If you are interested in more info on some of the random facts I've squeezed in here, also see the end notes.

Sam wakes up with a jolt, his body already twisting, half-rising, adrenaline spiking in whatever part of his subconscious pulls the alarm bells. It takes him a moment in the dark of his room, this little piece of quiet efficiency that isn't quite home but close, _close_ , to understand what woke him. 

It's his own name - he hears it again now, screamed in that scratchy from-the-depths-of-hell way, echoing from somewhere down the hall. Sam bolts up, gun in hand, skitters across the floor barefoot in his pajamas and pads down the hall. He knows what this is, but his heart is still pounding, and he can't not come when Dean calls his name like that, like pleading for salvation. Because what if this time it isn't just a dream? 

But Sam cracks the door to Dean's room open, and it's just his brother there, chest heaving, fighting against something Sam can't see, and Dean made him promise, made Sam swear after the last time that Sam wouldn't try to wake him anymore. 

Sam can still hear the whistle of the bullet passing next to his ear as he'd ducked to the side and Dean's waking voice saying "Shit. Sam? Sammy? Are you okay? Are you okay?" 

Sam closes the door again, but he slumps against the wall, sliding down until he's sitting across from Dean's bedroom, head on his knees, gun hanging loosely in hand. 

" _Sammy,"_ Dean screams again and Sam shudders, lets it ripple through him out here where Dean can't see him. He wonders how many times Dean called his name like that in Hell, through forty years of torture (and Sam knows, better than anyone, that those last ten years still counted), calling out for his baby brother, the last thing Dean had to hold onto. 

Sam screamed Dean's name in the pit, too. At least in the beginning, when he still remembered how. 

There's a small shuffling noise and Sam lifts his head from his knees. He forgot, in the abrupt waking, the familiar fear, about younger Dean, but this other, pre-hell version of his brother is standing a few steps back down the hall, his own gun clutched in his hands, looking confused and half-asleep. His short hair is adorably ruffled, and in the too-big gray t-shirt and black sweatpants Sam found for him he looks so incredibly young and soft. Sam loves him for it. He would give anything to be able to get his Dean some of that softness back. 

"Hey," Sam says hoarsely. "It's okay. Just. Um." 

"Is that me?" young Dean asks, a half-whisper. 

"Yeah." Sam can't bring himself to get up. He feels like if he can't actually wake Dean, the best he can do is stay near him. He hates leaving Dean. 

"Jesus," young Dean says. He's looking a little less asleep and a little more shaken. He lowers his gun and comes over, sits down next to Sam so that their shoulders brush. "Why aren't we waking him up?" 

"Last time I tried, he nearly shot me," Sam admits. "He made me promise not to." 

The Dean next to him considers this. "Well, I haven't promised anything," he says. "You want me to do it?" 

"No. No, it's… It's bad sometimes, when he wakes up." Sam doesn't elaborate. Nearly shooting Sam isn't the only response Dean's had to being pulled out of his nightmares. He's an "angry sleeper" in the best of times. "I'll get Cas if it goes on much longer. He's, you know, pretty hard to kill." 

"Is this a regular thing?" young Dean asks. His tone is forcibly casual. 

"Regular enough." Sam doesn't mention that Dean seems to have less nightmares when someone is with him, doesn't mention that he's pretty sure Cas is responsible for the number of nights they can go now without this happening, or that it's no coincidence that Sam only gets woken up by screaming on the nights when they aren't sleeping together. He's not supposed to know about that anyway. 

Which is fine. It's fine that his brother is, nominally at least, keeping the longest and most important relationship he's ever had from Sam. It's fine. They're all fine. 

" _Sam! Sam! No, God please, no…"_

"Jesus," younger Dean mutters again. 

"Yeah." 

"Does he know that he does this?" 

Sam leans into young Dean a little. It's easier to be affectionate with this young Dean. Not that Dean didn't have his issues at twenty-six, God knows he was already damaged beyond Sam's ability to salve over. They both were. 

Seeing Dean from 2005, Sam wishes he could reach back further, to Dean at sixteen maybe, Dean at thirteen, somewhere in their past when Sam could have grabbed Dean by the shoulders and told him that none of this was his fault, it wasn't his responsibility. Tell him that life isn't supposed to be like this, that he doesn't deserve this. Probably throw in that it was okay if he was into dudes, just for good measure. 

"Yeah, he knows." 

Young Dean is quiet. From across the hall, the screaming has turned down to muffled whimpering and snuffling noises, barely audible through the thick walls of the bunker. 

Sam breathes in through his nose and tries not to wince. The whimpering is pretty bad too. 

It fades out after a moment, and everything is silent - the deep silence of underground living. 

Sam breathes out again and slowly clambers to his feet. In his head, it feels like it takes ages. There's a lot of him to unfold, after all. 

Young Dean scrambles up too, tucking his gun carelessly into the back waistband of his sweatpants. He doesn't look sleepy anymore. 

"You want a drink?" this Dean asks. 

"Yeah," Sam says. "Yeah. Let's do that. Although maybe, like, tea for me." 

Young Dean groans, trotting after him as they head up to the kitchen. "I hate you a little bit." 

"I know," Sam says, letting himself smile just a little. 

Sam puts on the kettle, ignoring Dean's muttered "okay, grandma," as Dean pulls a beer out of the fridge and settles on a stool at the breakfast nook. Sam has a small collection of teas that he and Cas hide from their Dean - too many pranks have been made to trust him with their loose-leaf - and Sam settles on rooibos. 

Young Dean pulls a face at the smell as Sam joins him, his cup full of steaming red liquid, but doesn't harp on it. 

"So," Sam says after a moment. 

Dean grunts. He turns his bottle around in his hands, seeming to watch the low kitchen lights reflecting in the amber glass. 

Sam can see a light from under the closed door to the library where Cas, and probably Jack, are holed up. Which explains why neither of them came running at the sound of screams. The blessing and danger of semi-soundproof walls. 

"What about you, Sammy?" Dean asks after another few seconds have ticked by. 

"Me?" 

"Yeah. You have a lot of nightmares these days?" 

Sam closes his eyes, feels the burn of the tea against his chapped lips, the comforting, searing warmth of the ceramic on his palms. "Enough of them." 

"Are you…" Dean breaks off, pauses, and the look on his face when Sam opens his eyes is so full of open concern that Sam wants to hug him again. Their relationship has never been simple, never been healthy, but this is Dean before Hell, before Sam betrayed him with the demon blood and Ruby and Lilith. Before Dean let Gadreel take over Sam's body. Before Dean lied about the Mark. Before Sam got Charlie killed. 

If anything… Sam doesn't like to think about it, but the truth is that over the years of betrayals and irrational forgiveness, the moments of mistrust and deceit, he and Dean have somehow only managed to get closer. Frankly if they get any closer they're going to fucking merge like _Captain Universe_ \- or like Chuck and Amara. But it's not… 

It works like this: the Winchester brothers' first and most fundamental truth is their love for each other. There is nothing, not Heaven, Hell, or the Universe writ large, that they can stand to put in front of the other. 

And that's not _good._

Because when shit goes south, and it always does, this is their lives, and one or both of them fucks up, they don't work through it or consider the rationality or the ramifications of it. They hunker down further into that fundamental need to believe and trust in each other. 

This is a lot of things, and Sam doesn't say this, can't have this conversation with Dean because it would _hurt_ him and hurting him would hurt Sam and that's the whole goddamn start of this story, but he thinks what they've been doing over all these years is mainly their codependency and partly a result of "the backfire effect." 

Which works like this: take a simple fact someone believes in like the concept of an "alpha" wolf, and present them with the evidence that this idea was based on false observations made of wolves in captivity and that in the wild, wolves tend to have social structures that follow a family dynamic. For most people, this won't be a problem to believe. It's a little adjustment to their worldview, a new fun fact to whip out as the local pedant at their next cocktail party. No harm done. 

But take a fundamental belief, like, say "the Bible prohibits sexual relations between two men" and present the evidence that, actually, the words _malakoi_ and _arsenokoitai_ used (and in the latter case created) by the Apostle Paul in the New Testament were a reference not to homosexuals, or sexual identity at all, but rather to the pedophilic* practice common in Corinth at the time of Paul's writing - to the boys being "initiated to manhood" and to the older men "taking them under their wing." _Malakoi_ and _arsenokoitai_ are, when using rigorous scholarship and not modern cultural influence, better translated into the words used for the actors in this boy/man relationship - calamites and pederasts, respectively. And, in fact, the word "homosexual" was not used in the Bible at all until 1946, in the English _RSV_ , and it wasn't until the 1980s when American companies began paying for other countries' translations that the equivalent to "homosexual" showed up in other languages. Prior to American influence, most translations of Leviticus 18:22 read something closer to "man shall not lie with young boys as he does with a woman." 

The point being, it does not matter what sort of rigorous academic evidence is used to back up this second fact. It does not matter if the amount of linguistic scholarship can be piled as high as Mount Sinai - the contradiction to this fundamental belief is perceived as a threat. Rather than adjusting to the worldview as you might with the alpha wolves, a threat to a fundamental belief like this results in the opposite behavior - you double down. You believe twice as hard. The more facts you are given to the contrary, the greater your belief becomes. 

It's irrational, yes, but in a way it's biological too. The fear center of the brain sees these facts like incoming IEDs. It can't tell the difference between a physical threat and an existential one. The human brain is many things - and sometimes it is very, very dumb. 

So this is what Sam and Dean do. They fuck up, and maybe they apologize or maybe they don't, maybe they talk it out but probably they let it go. And each time they cross another line, they sink a little further into each other. They are fundamental. The idea of letting go - even just a little, even in just acknowledging this codependent thing they have - it feels impossible. It feels like a threat. 

Sam doesn't think they'll ever stop. He loves Dean, loves him past everything, loves him with a loyalty that scares the crap out of him. And it's not healthy. It's not good. It's messed up and complicated and impossible to untangle. 

So when Sam looks at this young Dean, this Dean whose greatest crime was probably ditching Sam at _Plucky Pennywhistle's_ or the things they yelled at each other the night Sam left for Stanford, it isn't that Sam feels _closer_ to this Dean. It's that their love back then, it was less complicated. It was probably as healthy as the love between brothers can be when one of them has been raising the other since the age of four. 

"Are you okay?" young Dean finishes. Sam wrenches himself out of his spiraling inner monologue. 

"I mean," Dean goes on. "Obviously you're not okay. But I just… Other Dean told me some stuff yesterday, about what happens. What happened. And you don't owe me your story or anything. Like, we don't have to talk about it. But if you want to tell me, you know. I'm still your older brother." Dean says it defensively, like he expects Sam to argue. "I just want to look out for you." 

Sam looks down at his own drink now, not sure if he wants to smile at this Dean who is eleven years younger than him, or cry. 

"He told you about Lucifer, huh? And Azazel?" 

Dean's fist clenches around his beer and he takes a gulp of it, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. "Yeah. We got up to the apocalypse." 

Sam almost says "which one?" but he knows. "That… was a long time ago now." It comes out quiet. "I mean, what we did back then, it's, um…" Sam doesn't quite know how to get at what he means, what he wants to explain to this Dean who wasn't there, who didn't go through it with him. 

"I'm not proud of everything I did. I know how it must sound, and I can't… I can't explain those choices away. But I hope you can understand that I… I always thought I was doing the right thing. However messed up it sounds, I thought I was doing it for us." 

When Sam pulls his eyes from his red tea - too light, too aromatic to be blood - young Dean is looking at him with a bewildered expression. 

"Sam," he says, slowly, like he thinks Sam is an idiot. "You fought off the devil. You took on Satan and you, little Sammy Winchester, you won." 

Sam closes his eyes again. Hearing it in Dean's voice, even if it is Dean's voice pre-hell, before Dean had come back out of the earth sounding like he'd spent forty years screaming, is almost like absolution. 

"But he told you, right? About the demon blood? About Lilith? That I…" _started it, the whole thing._

"Well. Yes. And I don't know, man, I wasn't there. I get that it was bad and we both made some choices. But I know you. I still know you. And you'll always be the boy who stayed after school to tutor the kids who were struggling, the kid who dragged me to volunteer at animal shelters, the frikkin' toddler who brought me a baby bird that fell out of its nest and cried until we put it back. You're not evil, man. You don't have it in you." 

Sam breathes out. It's the _you'll always be_ that gets him. It's been a long time since he felt anything like that kid. It's been a long time since he felt like his Dean saw him that way either. 

"Yeah," he says, voice rough. "Maybe." 

Dean claps him on the back and Sam chances meeting his eyes. This Dean looks at him with all the worry he's always had, like no matter how big Sam gets or how much older, he's still that little kid Dean had to lead around by the hand. 

"You went to Hell too, didn't you?" Dean asks, quiet, in a voice brooked by sadness. 

Sam nods, drinks his tea. "Yeah. I did." 

"For how… how long?" The question is strained. 

Sam thinks about lying. His thoughts stutter over memories of the cage like they always do, power down like an engine failure, jump around the live wires threatening to tangle around his skin. 

"Sam?" 

Sam didn't realize he'd fallen silent. He clears his throat and makes himself meet Dean's eyes. "A little over a year." 

Dean's eyes narrow, and then widen again in horror. "Sammy," he says, and his voice is broken. "A hundred and twenty years? You spent over a century in… How? How could I just…?" 

"It wasn't your fault, Dean." Sam is suddenly so tired. It's past four in the morning and Sam is thirty-seven years old, and he knows that he's not going to be able to get back to sleep at this point, but he's so tired. He's so tired of trying to convince Dean that not everything that happens to Sam is Dean's responsibility. Dad put that on Dean and he's never put it back down. 

"Nothing about it was your fault. I knew what I was doing when I said yes to Lucifer, what that meant for me. And even though I made you promise not to try and get me out, of course you did. You tried everything. And you were the one who took all sorts of risks to get my soul out of there. And when things, uh, got complicated, you're the one who kept me here. None of it is on you." 

Dean shakes his head, but he says "I didn't mean… sorry. I didn't mean to make this about me. I just… Sam. Jesus. Fuck. I'm so sorry." 

Sam bumps his shoulder into Dean's. "To answer your question - you're right, I'm not okay. But I kind of am. I'm close enough, under the circumstances." 

Upstairs, the door to the library opens. Cas and Jack emerge, Cas blinking in surprise to see them up, Jack's eyes lingering warily on young Dean. 

"What are you doing up?" Cas asks at large as he and Jack join them. 

"Couldn't sleep," Sam says. It's not _lying_ , and he doesn't have some grand purpose behind it, just maybe to save Cas' feeling of guilt that he didn't hear older Dean, to save them all from talking about older Dean behind his back. "I suppose there's no hope for it now." He sets his half-drunk tea on the counter and stands with a stretch and a yawn. "I'm gonna go for a run." 

Young Dean looks at Sam in disbelieving horror. "Are you crazy? Don't we spend enough time running from things?" 

Sam can't help himself, he reaches out and ruffles Dean's hair fondly. "Gotta stay spry. _I'm_ not getting any younger," he says with a wink. 

Young Dean ends up going back to bed, so when Sam returns to the bunker just as dawn light is creeping into the navy Kansas sky, he finds only Jack in the kitchen. Jack is waiting for him, coffee percolating in the background, and Sam's tired and spilling over with fondness. He ruffles Jack's hair too, on his way to the fridge. 

Jack makes a protesting sort of grumble and flattens his hair back down. "I don't get it," Jack says, characteristically without preamble. "Why not a copy of Dean from _now_ ? And what are we going to do if one of them dying _is_ the only way to break the curse?" 

"No one's dying," Sam says firmly for like the hundredth time that week. "We're not gonna let either of them die. Not from this. And as for why Dean at twenty-six, I don't know. It seems like a Crowley kind of thing to do, you know? Mess with Dean's head, make us think we have to pick which one of them lives." 

"But what if we do?" Jack says stubbornly. "We wouldn't give up our Dean for this one. Would we?" 

"That's not…" Sam sighs. It is too early for this kind of earnest ethics inquiry from Jack. "It's not gonna happen, Jack. Okay? We're not picking between them." 

Jack frowns into his cup of coffee, that confused, I'm-actually-only-three-years-old sort of look he still gets from time to time. Sam tries very hard not to worry about this in terms of their plans for him. 

"Anyway. The desert did you good, huh?" 

Jack clenches and unclenches his fingers on the table. "Yeah. A little." 

It had been Cas' idea. The whole thing made Sam uneasy - it felt too biblical, too much like following scripture. Too much like Chuck. 

But Jack had been struggling with all that borrowed power, every little jolt of energy coalescing inside of him, a power vacuum with no plug, nothing to do but wait. Cas had said “In the old days I might have sent you on a pilgrimage. To Mecca or Jerusalem or the Sahara. Somewhere to fast and think and feel your body upon the earth.” 

And Jack had tilted his head, the way he’d picked up from his father, and said “I could go to a desert.” 

It was like a sanctification ritual - your body out there under the sun, feet on the cracked earth, struggling towards an unknown center, finding the will to survive. Like Jesus in the desert. Cas says he doesn’t know if that story is apocryphal, but it doesn’t matter. 

Sam had voiced his concern that if they sent Jack off alone, Chuck might realize what they were up to, might find him out there and get to him before they were ready. But Dean agreed with Cas that it was just as dangerous for Jack to be in the bunker or near them at all, that he might as well pick some place else free of the Winchesters while he was figuring out how to handle all this extra power. 

So Jack went off to see the desert and the mountains in California, and Sam and Dean went to hunt a witch. They always seem to end up here, anyway. 

“It felt…” Jack tries now, his face screwed up a little with the effort of explaining the inexplicable. “Like… Like opening myself up to the sky. To the sands and the wind. That’s all there is out there, and I was a part of it. I felt like I was with it, in it. And when I was in the sky and the earth I could open myself up to all this power too.” 

Turning their kid into God.

Maybe Sam should have let Dean kill him. Maybe Sam is just sending Jack through a slower death. Maybe this is all still what Chuck wants. 

Sam didn’t get a full ride to Stanford all those years ago just because the admissions office knew he was dirt poor. He’s smart, clever, resourceful. He’s always been good at whatever he put his mind to.

But you don’t play dice with God. 

Sam doesn’t have a clue if they have half a hope here. None of them do. This one isn’t in the bible. It’s an outline of a script that Sam can’t see yet, can never see until they’re halfway through it. He and Dean have fucked up a fair few endings so far with their crazy, desperate love for each other - this thing they can’t give up - but how long can they keep that up? 

“You’re doing good, Jack,” Sam says, because it’s all he knows how to say. “We’re going to do this.” 

  
  


*** 

Cas has been alive for a very, very long time. He doesn't remember exactly when he was first formed, when everything was new and so blindingly bright and overwhelming with certain intent. Cas was blinding too, ripples of radiation pulled from the beginning of the universe strung into being, created like all things eternal: energy undestroyed. He was colorful, a spectrum of wavelengths outside human perception, something even the brine shrimp on earth cannot fully fathom with their extra optical cones. He _is_ still light and color - he is electromagnetic radiation that has been encased in muddled flesh. He is pinned to the earth by this human body, but he is that same formation of energy and entropy that watched millenia go by, waiting, just waiting mostly, for his part to come. 

Once, years ago, when Cas was reading in his bed at the bunker somewhere in the realm of 2:00 am, there was a soft knock on his door and before he'd even answered, Dean had cracked the door open and slipped in. He'd been wearing sweatpants and a gray v-neck t-shirt. His hair was mussed, and the shadows that lived under his eyes were bruise-purple. He looked unbearably soft. 

“Hey,” Dean said. 

“Hi,” Cas answered, lowering his book cautiously. 

Dean shifted on his feet near the door for another moment, neither of them saying anything, just staring at each other in the way they always have, this palpable energy between them that Cas thinks must have been born at the beginning of the universe too. 

“Couldn’t sleep,” Dean added finally, unnecessarily. And that seemed to settle something in him, because he came over to the bed, pried Cas’ arm up, and ducked underneath to curl into him. Dean pressed up against Cas, lying half on top of him with one leg thrown over Cas’ thigh, his arm wrapping over Cas’ ribs, and his head pillowed between Cas’ shoulder and chest. 

Cas let his arm fall back when Dean released it, let that hand come down on Dean’s side, but otherwise he didn’t dare move. So far, this thing that they’d been doing for almost a year, was all stolen glances and desperate, secret release. They touched each other more often. Dean sometimes held his hand when they were alone. But unless they’d had sex first, they didn’t do _this,_ and even when they did have sex it was about a 70/30 toss up on whether Dean would want Cas to stay. 

Cas didn’t know the rules to any of this, but he didn’t think Dean did either. 

Dean snuggled deeper into Cas’ chest and let out a soft little sigh. 

Something about that sound made Cas’ chest ache in a way that felt all too human. He cupped the hand on Dean’s side to the shape of his ribs, thumb tracing along the bone. Cas let go of his book and pushed his other hand into Dean’s hair, already rumpled from tossing and turning. 

Dean’s eyes were closed and he pressed his mouth against Cas’ shirt, landing a kiss somewhere near his clavicle. “Talk to me, Cas.” 

Cas never expected to have any of this. He wanted it, ached for it long before he’d understood what the feeling was, but he had really, truly believed it could never happen. That Dean could never want Cas as he was - man or angel or light made manifest. 

Cas doesn’t think about sex in the way that most humans seem to. Truth be told, he’d never really thought about it at all until Dean had brought it up, had promised not to let him die a virgin that night before Cas tried to talk to Raphael. And Cas had thought, without meaning to, looking at Dean’s green eyes and freckles and genuine smile, _I wouldn’t mind if it was you._

Even then, he’d known what a hopeless thought that was, knew even as it shook him to think it. But Dean was warm and kind and good, with patient hands and steady breaths, and he liked to teach Cas things, was good at teaching him about being human. Cas had thought Dean would probably be good at teaching him this too. 

This passing madness aside, Cas hadn’t thought about his feelings for Dean in terms of sexual desire. The farthest he ever let his thoughts go was imagining touching him - a hand on his face, in his hair, hugging him longer than the seconds their near-death experiences afforded them. He just wanted to hold Dean, wanted to keep him safe. And he knew that, too, was impossible. 

Then Dean had kissed him that night - kissed him desperate, needy, with unfathomable heat, and Cas had been lost. Hester had been right about one thing, Cas _had_ been lost the moment he laid a hand on Dean in Hell. 

He had never, ever, expected Dean to put his hands on him in return like that. 

The only other time before Dean that Cas had engaged in fornication, it had been enjoyable. A little awkward and confusing and really quite short, but pleasant. Nothing he felt a particular need to pursue, but not something he regretted. 

He had never even imagined, and could not have comprehended, how the energy would magnify between his and Dean’s naked bodies. How it would feel to cross that last line between them and become a part of each other; encased and casing. How it would feel to know Dean wanted him too. 

And, because apparently Cas’ world had tipped upside down, Dean had let Cas hold him. Dean _wanted_ to be held by him. 

It was a privilege Cas wasn’t sure he’d earned, but not one he was willing to give up. 

One year in, Dean coming to him just to be held, just to cuddle up to Cas like this, it made all the light inside Cas thrum. 

“What do you want me to talk about?” Cas asked, obsessed with the way Dean’s short, choppy hair slid through his fingers.

“I dunno. What are you reading?” 

“A collection of letters from the french revolution. They’re quite sad.” 

“Mm. Not that then. Tell me… I don’t know, tell me about the most boring period on earth that you’ve lived through.” 

Cas thought about the request seriously. “I don’t know that any of them were boring, Dean.” 

Dean snorted. “C’mon, you were around when there was nothing but primordial soup. You must have been pretty bored watching that.” 

“I don’t remember much before the first complex organisms began to walk the earth,” Cas admitted. “There was so much to absorb at first. The whole universe to take in. The earth was a place of interest, of course, but I think I was among the stars for awhile, just learning about my place in things.” 

“Huh,” Deans says, not moving from Cas’ chest so that his mouth tickles the fabric of Cas’ shirt. “Sometimes I forget, you know.” 

“Forget what?”

“That you really are a cosmic being who has been around for millenia.” Dean’s fist curled loosely in Cas’ shirt. “You were out there frolicking with stars. And here I am using you like a frikkin’ giant teddy bear.” 

Cas ducked his head down to kiss Dean’s temple, and he caught the way Dean smiled in response to his touch. It ached and ached and ached. Dean was so warm and Cas was so in love with him. 

“I don’t mind.” 

“Mm. This story’s not boring enough, Cas. You’re trying to lull me to sleep.” 

“Is that what I’m doing? I could recite scripture, you’ve always said you find it dull.” 

Dean groaned and turned his face into Cas’ shirt, hot breath pushing through the fabric so that Cas could feel it on his skin. “Absolutely not. I’ve had enough of the bible to last me a lifetime and more, thanks.”

“Well,” Cas said, thinking hard. “I suppose there was the Cretaceous Period. I’m not saying it was boring, but the first ten or twenty million years did seem to drag by.” 

“Mm?” Dean asked. Cas smiled at the drowsy little noise, still stroking his hair. 

“It was the last great period of the dinosaurs, you know. I don’t understand why modern artists insist on depicting the dinosaurs as scaled when they’ve known for years now that almost all of the species they’ve discovered had feathers. Plus they never take into account the different possibilities for fat deposits and musculature, so everything ends up in the shape of the skeletal structure, which isn’t a great tool for accuracy. I’ve always thought, personally, that chickens share a great deal in common with what you call a Tyrannosaurus-Rex. 

"Of course, the Early Cretaceous Period is also when flowering plants first began to dominate the earth, which are some of my favorite non-human organisms. The complexity and diversity of the species of plants never fails to amaze me. I mean, Dean, did you know that it’s not just trees whose age you can count from a cross-section of their inner rings? Of course, you’d need a microscope for some of them, but the formation of most stems is so dazzlingly-” 

“Cas?” 

“Yes, Dean?” 

Dean nudged his face into Cas’ shirt again, eyes still shut. His voice was warm and sleepy, soft in a way Cas so rarely got to hear. Dean was always so warm, so human. He was so beautiful. It was unfair that Cas was allowed to bear witness to him like this when the world wasn’t. 

Dean snuggled up close, arm tightening briefly over Cas’ stomach now. 

“I like this too,” he murmured. 

It didn’t matter that it had been eight months since Cas had said it first, had taken the chance of saying it as they lay together on the floor of a dilapidated house after their second time together. Cas had needed to say it, needed to let it out or he thought he might suffocate. That too was so human. 

“I know,” Cas said, his voice low and hoarse. He leaned down, craning his neck, to kiss into Dean’s hair. Dean smelled like home. Like love and absolution. 

Dean huffed a small laugh, nuzzling his face against him, half-asleep already. 

Cas kept talking for a while, until Dean’s shoulders were fully relaxed and his breathing evened out, and for some time after that. He held this stubborn, reckless warrior of earth in his arms and talked of orchids and root systems and bees. 

Or another time, in Dean’s room under the covers, naked and sweat-slicked, they had been lying facing each other, legs tangled, just enough space to stare into each other’s eyes. Dean told him that much eye contact wasn’t normal once, but not like he wanted to stop. Cas told him that Dean’s eyes remind him of his soul. Green and flecked with gold and shining. 

That isn’t really how Cas would depict Dean’s soul, but Cas doesn’t know how to explain in words what love looks like anymore than he can describe how it feels. 

In bed that night, just looking at each other, Dean said “Tell me something you’ve never told anyone else.” 

Cas didn’t know at the time that this was the kind of question that people in relationships ask each other, the same way he didn’t imbue any extra meaning into the way Dean had started to turn to him sometimes on long drives and ask him what he was thinking. 

Cas has learned to pick one of the many threads in his head at any given time rather than try to explain to Dean why he is thinking about both marsupial mating patterns and the efficacy of qualitative versus quantitative research. 

Cas’ eyebrows furrowed as he searched Dean’s face, one of Dean’s feet rubbing lazily between Cas’ calves. There is so much that Cas had never said out loud, and so much that he’d only ever told Dean. 

Cas has watched the birth and death of stars in the loneliness of space. He has razed cities, burned down churches, watched entire species wiped from the earth. He knows that trees talk to each other through their roots in complex messages, knows that homo sapiens are responsible for the genocide of their sibling species, knows that this planet will not survive to see the death of its sun. 

But Cas, uncertain though he was of the rules, did not think any of these things was what Dean was asking. 

“Can you be more specific?” Cas said, after struggling with the question for a moment. 

Dean laughed, the hot breath of it ghosting across Cas’ face. He didn’t mind. 

“Yeah, man, I don’t know. Just… something about you that no one else knows.”

Cas thought for another minute, and then he said “I was in the Middle East for a while, around 400 AD, and there was a raid on a temple in Persia. I wasn’t supposed to do anything, I was only there to observe. But there was a child, a little girl who was supposed to die. She was so small and innocent. She made flower chains on her way to worship and laid them at the steps of the temple. And I thought _surely one life, one small miracle._ I hid her, and Heaven never knew.” Cas didn’t mention the other times he had disobeyed and Heaven had found out. He wasn’t sure he had all those memories back, even after the angel tablet reset him. “I believe you’re familiar with one of her descendants actually, Farrokh Bulsara?”

Dean’s eyes widened in delighted disbelief. “Shut up,” he said. “No. You are not telling me that you being a chaotic little shit and disobeying Heaven is directly responsible for the band Queen.”

“That wasn’t the point of my story…” 

“Cas, you absolute legend. I’m so proud of you.” Dean grinned at him. “I know, I know. You saved an innocent life and it was harrowing and you did good, but please tell me I’m allowed to be proud of your sheer cosmic chaos.” 

Cas knew Dean was teasing him at least a little, but the praise still went straight to Cas’ chest, warm and glowing. 

“What about you, Dean?” It wasn’t a question Cas would have presumed to ask on his own, but if Dean can do it…

The grin slipped from Dean’s face and he slumped back into the pillow, chin ducking down and his fingers curling into loose fists where they were tucking against Cas’ stomach. 

Dean took a moment to answer. Cas waited. He could always wait. 

“I got my first kiss when I was thirteen,” Dean said eventually, quietly. His eyes flitted back up to Cas’. 

This revelation seemed a tad underwhelming to Cas, but there was a significance to Dean’s words, a heaviness to them, that Cas didn’t understand. Dean searched Cas’ face for a few seconds before he looked down again, down at his hands in the space between them. 

“I didn’t want it,” he added, in a voice smaller than Cas had ever heard him use. 

“Oh,” Cas said, understanding blooming like nausea in his stomach. 

“Yeah,” Dean said to that space between them. “It was a friend of my dad’s, hunter friend, you know, who me and Sam were staying with for a couple of days while dad worked a case.” 

Cas wanted to reach for Dean, tug him in, but his hands suddenly felt like weapons. 

“He and his wife, they had some land. Had an old barn set up with devils traps and salt and stuff, kinda stockpiling. We were supposed to be training, and one afternoon he took me out behind the barn, and, uh…” Dean trailed off. He was quiet for another moment, but his fingers were twitching and Cas could tell he was finding his way to the words. “Thing is, I was thirteen, you know? He was bigger and older than me, but I could have fought him. Might have won too. I was kinda a small kid, but I was fast and I knew how to fight. I could have fought him, and I didn’t. I just let him…” 

Dean’s voice broke and Cas reached for him automatically. Dean didn’t stop him, didn’t wince away from the hand resting on his shoulder blade. 

“He threatened to hurt Sammy, if I didn’t… or if I said anything. And I couldn’t… I _couldn’t._ So I just let him and I never told anyone.” 

“Dean…” 

“You ever tell anyone about this, I will fucking kill you,” Dean said, but more like he was getting it out of the way than as an actual threat. 

"I would never give away your secrets," Cas said. His hand found Dean's spine and rubbed along his bare flesh there, stretched tight over the bony protrusions. "If you tell me his name, I _will_ kill him." 

Dean's laugh was half-broken, but his fingers trailed up Cas' chest to rest close to his heart. "Don't worry about it, man. I checked in years ago, he died back in '06, hunting." 

"Good." 

"Yeah. Well." 

"Thank you for telling me," Cas said. He brought his hand up hesitantly to touch Dean's cheek. "For trusting me." 

Dean nodded, swallowed, then dragged his eyes back up to meet Cas'. "I do, you know." He cleared his throat. "Trust you, I mean." 

"I'm not sure I deserve that," Cas said, but his fingers traced through the stubble of Dean's cheek, light as a feather. "But I will try to, Dean. I will try to deserve your trust." 

Dean sighed, shut his eyes, and scooted forward, flush against Cas. He ducked his head beneath Cas' chin, breathing into the hollow of his throat. Cas adjusted his arms again, wrapped them tight around Dean, tried to put the unsaid things into the pressure of holding him close. 

"Cas? You get why I told you this, right?" Dean said after a few minutes of quiet. "You know, I'm not… I don't, um…"

Cas had thought that Dean's issues with what they were doing, the way he sometimes couldn't meet Cas' eyes for days afterward, the way he pushed him away, the way he sometimes got surly and mean and picked a fight, were about Dean's father. About what John might have said if he knew. Maybe about Sam as well, although even Cas can see how misplaced that fear is. Sam had caught on to them ages ago, and Cas is pretty sure that on some level at least, Dean knows this. 

Cas has known that Dean's relationship to his own body is complicated, that the body Cas put back together himself is still full of trauma, still holds the history of a hard, brutal life. Cas couldn't take that away when he put Dean's soul back into the ground. Not without changing who Dean was as a person. 

"I understand," Cas said, thinking that for once, he did. 

Dean kissed his throat before sliding down, face pressed to Cas' collarbone. 

"'Night, Cas." 

"Goodnight, Dean." 

And Castiel, who does not remember the moment he came into existence but is old enough to have seen the earth freeze and thaw and start life over and over, who has smote nations and carried the banner of Heaven, who broke with God, who has been a god, thought that none of it compared to being allowed to watch over this one intractable soul. 

Cas thought, listening to Dean's soft snores against his chest, that if the energy of his life carries on past Cas' own, final, death, these will be the moments that whatever is left of his frequency and radiation remember. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter content warnings: internalized homophobia, nightmares, emotional abuse, co-dependency, brief reference to historical pedophilia, brief reference to religious homophobia, reference to childhood sexual abuse, reference to memory resetting 
> 
> If you are interested in "the backfire effect," I strongly recommend this comic by The Oatmeal which explains it much better than me: https://theoatmeal.com/comics/believe 
> 
> Also, what I said about alpha wolves is true, but a slight simplification. Ditto on the biblical stuff. This is bad scholarship, but as much as I might like to post a 3,000 word chapter on the absolute nonsense of anachronistic use of "homosexual" or other homophobic language in the Christian bible, I figured that's probably not what most of you are here for. 
> 
> * *EDIT to add* I don't think I'm going to change the text in this chapter, but I may try to bring this up in later chapters, because I'm uncomfortable with how I've presented the concept of "pederasty" here. Turns out it's actually a pretty complicated subject, and to say that it is a pedophilic practice is, in itself, something of an anachronism. Obviously, sexual abuse or abuse of power dynamics is an awful thing, but it's been suggested that these relationships were usually with young men who were at least military aged, in later teens to twenties - not necessarily what has been meant by "young boys." I'm not gonna get into the complicated moral weeds of this dynamic on an end note of a fanfiction - I'm not, like, trying to condone it or condemn it. I'm just saying it's complicated. It also seems to me that some of the scholarship of this practice is a little suspect, because of the desire to paint any "homosexual" behavior as being pedophilic/immoral. Anyway, I'm not an expert in *anything*, please take everything I say with a generous helping of salt.


	9. Open out the grace of your eyes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't know how I managed to write so much plot all at once??? 
> 
> Anyway, y'all, I asked my friend who is a college art history teacher if she had any fun facts about Ancient Greece and I cannot begin to tell you how fucking funny I find the "herm or herma" style of sculpture. CW for artistic depiction of genitalia, but I recommend looking it up if you want a laugh. 
> 
> Content warnings in end notes.

The thing that is eating away at twenty-six year-old Dean isn’t Hell or the demon blood or the frikkin’ apocalypse or any of that - it should be, but that is so far beyond Dean’s ability to process, something that he may never actually go through, that he’s kinda able to shut it away. No, the thing that is going to kill Dean is _Adam_. 

Older Dean didn’t say much about it, when he dropped that bombshell in the middle of his apocalypse story. Dean had to stop him and ask “What?” in a voice that he hoped wasn’t too choked. Older Dean had given him a look, something that might even have been sympathetic, and Dean wasn’t going to press for too many details when his older self already thought he was weak and useless, but… fuck. _Fuck._

It's more than Dean can stand. 

The more he thinks about it, the more it grows exponentially, until the shadows of this truth crowd out everything else. 

Dad had another family. 

Dad had another _son._ Dean had a brother that had been kept from him, a brother who in Dean's timeline was very much alive and well. Hell, for all Dean knows, dad was with Adam while Dean was crashing on Bobby's couch just before he'd been pulled here. 

Dad never said a fucking word. He'd talked about family and loyalty, made out like these were the greatest virtues a man could have. And all this time… all this fucking time… 

In his borrowed room at the bunker, Dean paces, and he thinks he'll go crazy with it, with this feeling in his chest and mouth and fingertips. 

The thought that sometimes when dad left them it was to go see his other kid, that he'd left Dean to be a parent while he was off playing the part of a father to some other son, some kid who wasn't as fucked up as Dean… 

Dean slams his fist into the bunker wall and it isn't enough. 

The things Dean had to do to take care of Sam, the choices he'd made when they'd run out of food or money, when he didn't know what else to do, have always been a weight in his heart, tucked away somewhere untouchable because it didn't matter. Because he would have done it again if he had to, he'd done whatever it took. 

The thought that dad might have been with Adam when they needed him, when Sammy was sick or needed money for textbooks or when Dean had felt helpless and scared that he was gonna mess this up, mess his baby brother up, it burns right through Dean. 

Dad kept this from him. He put all this crap on Dean to keep his little brother safe, and then he kept Dean's other brother from him. 

If Dean had just known, he could have kept Adam safe too. He could have looked out for him, checked in on him when dad died. Adam would have had someone to call when the ghouls came after him and his mom. 

Dean shuts his eyes tight, fist resting against the wall, the angle of his body taut with tension. 

Adam had a mom. Got to have a mom. Maybe she would have resented him and Sam, but maybe… 

Dean punches the wall until the skin over his knuckles breaks. He's going to match older Dean and he doesn't care. 

It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. 

Adam is long dead in this time, and Dean isn't going to get back to his own timeline, and probably Adam wouldn't have wanted anything to do with him anyway. Probably resented John for leaving him too. 

It feels like a fucking knife in his gut. 

Dean has always, always defended John. To Sam, to Bobby, to anyone who knew enough to comment. He always believed that his dad was doing the best he could, that John was a hero, out there saving the world. Dean had always wanted to be like him, even if he knew he wasn't, that Sam was more like dad than Dean could ever be. 

Dean did everything John ever asked of him - has done since he was four. John didn't keep the ugly truth of the world from Dean, and in return John wasn't supposed to _lie_ to him. Not about stuff like this. 

For a moment, Dean _hates_ his father. It's the purest anger he's ever been able to direct towards him and the force of it shocks him, knocks him off balance. Sam was the one who got to be a rebellious teenager, the one who yelled at their dad and stormed out and ran off and disobeyed. Dean never did any of that. He did what he was told and when he couldn't, he figured out the next best thing and he did that. He never complained, never fought back, never even thought about running. 

None of it was ever, ever good enough for John. Dean blamed himself, always has, for not being tough enough, for being too pretty, for not having a mind that went fast like Sammy's. Dean was always, always failing. 

Dean's willing to bet money that John never raised a hand to Adam. Because Adam's mom, whoever she was, surely wouldn't have allowed that. Because Adam was a son, and not a soldier. Because Adam was just a kid, not a disappointment. And Dean never let John near Sam when he was in one of his moods, and John loved Sam anyway, so it's just him - it's just Dean that John felt he had to beat something out of, or something into. And he didn't. He _didn't_ have to. Dean wouldn't have disobeyed. He would have looked out for Sammy. Maybe he looked at boys sometimes, but he wouldn't have acted on it, not for his own sake. John didn't have to hit him to teach him those things. 

The knife twists further and further into his gut and Dean wants to scream with the unfairness of it all. 

Older Dean and Sam found out about Adam years after John's death, but dad is still very much alive to Dean, even if they aren't in the same timeline anymore. Dean can't imagine facing his father after this. He's not going to have to, probably, but there's still a chance he gets dragged back there. 

Dean is afraid of what he might do if that happens. 

Dean didn't get back to sleep that morning after his own voice had woken him up screaming - which, Jesus - so he's tired and groggy when he stumbles back into the kitchen around 8:00. 

Older Dean looks up from his coffee when he enters, the bags under his eyes carrying an extra few years this morning. He notices Dean's newly bandaged hand and holds his own out for a fist bump. 

"Hey look," he says with a flash of a grin. "Almost like we're twins." 

Sam frowns over their gently knocking fists and Cas looks like he desperately wants to heal them both, but neither of them comments and Dean retrieves his own coffee in peace. 

Dean spends the day much like the last few, buried in Greek mythology and history and reference books. Turns out the _Ancient_ part of Ancient Greece means there's no dearth of information to sort through from centuries of anthropology, sociology, art, theatre, etc. Sam's lead in Italy turned up a few pages written about the statue older Dean had discovered, but not the text of the play or anything useful about the mythology of this Cerodicus/Xerodicus guy. The slightly harried Italian curator points them to a German collector who in turn points them to a German museum. 

"No, that's great. _Ist gut_ ? That's - _Cas,"_ Sam hisses, covering his phone with his hand. "How's your German?" 

Cas rolls his eyes, takes the phone, and proceeds to speak what Dean can only assume is perfect German into it. He stares a little, the abrupt switch to the guttural vowels suits Cas' gravel voice, and he's slipped into an accent. Dean tears his eyes away when Cas looks up at him, burying his face in the dusty tome on the table in front of him. 

After a minute, Cas says " _Danke. Auf Wiedersehen,_ " and he hangs up, handing the phone back to Sam. "They're going to scan over a copy today. I gave them your email. The text they have is in the original Greek, but apparently they have a foreign exchange student who has been working on an English translation, so they'll send that too." 

While they wait, Dean keeps reading. He can't help but notice a certain trend in the literature, the deeper he gets. He has read about Achilles and Patrocles, about Hadrian and Antinous, Apollo and Hyacinth and Cyparissus, Alexander the Great and Hephaestion, and everywhere this word _beloved._

_Stand to face me beloved_

_And open out the grace of your eyes,_ wrote Sappho. 

Maybe it's just Dean, hypersensitive to anything that makes him think about what older Dean and Cas have going on, but Greek society seemed pretty damn homoerotic - or whatever Cas had called it the other day. 

Also, there's just, like, a _lot_ of dicks. 

It's a lot to ask from a guy struggling with the future of his sexual orientation. 

Dean insists on a break around noon, and Sam takes him down to the bunker gun range. Dean can't help the swell of pride he feels watching Sammy take a turn and hitting the bullseye in a neat cluster every time. Dean's a good shot - one of the few things he's been naturally good at his whole life, and he was the one who taught his little brother. 

It feels good to have a gun in his hand, good to let the anger and confusion and complicated emotions of the last few days out in the rush of bullets through the air, the push of the kickback, the satisfying _fip!_ of hitting the target, and the rattle of casings dropping to the cement floor. This is where Dean finds peace when he's not on the road. 

"You okay?" Sam asks after they've gone a few rounds and are headed back upstairs. 

Dean shoves his bandaged hand into his pocket and shrugs. "I'm good. Glad to see you're still a good shot, kiddo." 

Sam laughs. "I'm nearly forty, dude." 

Dean gives an exaggerated shudder. "Don't say it like that, it gives me the creeps. Me being forty - that's a damn miracle. You at forty - impossible. You are still two years old and calling me 'DeeDee.'" 

Sam's laughter is the most joyful that Dean has heard since he got here, a kind of surprised snort startled out of him. "Shut up. I did not call you _DeeDee._ " 

"Oh yes, you did. It was like your first word, man." 

Sam turns around on the stairs and grins at him, weary face lightened for a moment in his curious amusement. "Was it really? I didn't know that." 

Dean feels suddenly self-conscious, like maybe he's stepped in something they don't talk about, something older Dean wouldn't want his Sam to know. But Dean can't see the harm in this memory, and anyway, it's his life too. He's a real person too. 

"Yeah, if you can call it a word, I guess. It's the first sound you seemed to make on purpose when you wanted me, at least." 

Sam looks at him for a moment, grin fading to a softer fondness, tinged as always with that complicated sadness in his eyes. "Makes sense," he says. "That I learned how to ask for you before dad or anything." 

"Oh no. No, no, don't get all fucking sappy on me. Keep moving." Dean pushes Sam lightly, and he rolls his eyes but leads them up the stairs and back into the living room area. 

When Sam sits back down at his laptop, the scans of the play have come in. He prints out copies of the translation for everyone and a copy of the original Greek for Cas. 

"So do you just know, like, all the languages?" Dean asks Cas. 

Cas doesn't look up from his printouts. "I know everything," he says mildly. 

Dean narrows his eyes. He's pretty sure this is what passes for Cas' deadpan humor. 

The play is so mind-numbingly dense that Dean finds himself reading the same passage over and over for ten minutes before he decides to just skip around. 

_And so he railed against Olympus_

_And against the earth_

_And beat upon his breast, saying_

_"Hear thou, how hollow a sound_

_I make on this instrument now,_

_For my heart has been ripped from me_

_And now am I empty._

_Now am I like the beasts upon the ground,_

_Without reason, without a soul,_

_Now am I like those black-eyed_

_Things that crawl beneath the earth_

_And spit at the living._

_Oh to be across the river! Strike me down,_

_Zeus, Apollo, fair Clesus,_

_Father, brother, lover,_

_Take me from this suffering!"_

_But there was only answering silence,_

_And Hades did not open up his maw,_

_Nor the mother earth take pity._

_Xerodicus cried out each day anew, but the_

_Echo of his shattered heart_

_Was the only voice in return…_

Dean groans and lays his head on the table, peering sideways at older Dean, who is staring blankly into space, not even pretending to read. 

“Dude, are you getting any of this?” Dean asks. “It’s like fucking poetry.” 

Older Dean blinks, coming back to himself and glances at the printout. “It’s all Greek to me,” he says. 

Dean laughs at the same time that Sam, across the table and apparently already halfway through his copy of the play, groans. 

“If you’re not going to help, at least go be distracting somewhere else,” Sam says. 

Older Dean yawns, stands and stretches, his shoulders audibly cracking. “I’m gonna go for a drive.” He looks at Dean a little warily and adds “You want to come?” 

Dean knows it’s a peace offering and he probably shouldn’t push it, but he does. “Can I drive?” 

Older Dean scowls at him, hesitates, and then, remarkably, tosses his keys to Dean. “Fine. You break anything, you’re fixing her.” 

“Oh man, it is good to be back here, baby,” Dean says, ignoring his older self and running his hand lovingly over the Impala’s steering wheel. “Is Grumpy here treating you right?” 

Older Dean snorts. “Had to rebuild her a couple of times, but don’t worry, she’s the same tough broad.” 

Dean pulls out of the garage and takes them down the backroads, the sun flickering in and out of the gray clouds above them. Older Dean puts in a Phil Collins tape, which feels like an odd choice, but okay, and he doesn’t try to talk. He just looks out the passenger window, watching the fields and farmhouses go by. 

Dean has been all over this country, and he knows that there is a deep, green and wild beauty to the West Coast, a certain loveliness in the shorelines and white birches of the East, but he is a child of the plains, of prairies grass and midwestern loneliness. Dean’s happiest place is the road, and his favorites are the stretches of highway where the road is flat and unending so that the horizon stretches out before him like a promise of tomorrow. Strips of Nevada are like this, where Dean has seen wild horses running alongside the Impala and he’s stuck his head out of the window and felt the air whip his face just to know what they were feeling. Wyoming is like this, with the big blue sky stretched out forever, infinite and untroubled by the black road running up to meet it. 

Kansas is like this too; her roads unending, her scenery muted tans and greens, but that asphalt with its double yellow lines riding out into an unknowable distance. 

When the B-side of Phil Collins runs out, older Dean sighs, seeming to wrench his thoughts from the road too. 

“We should talk,” he says finally, tiredly, running a hand through his hair. 

“You breaking up with me?” Dean asks, trying to cover his nerves the way he always does. 

Older Dean gives him a look that tells Dean he sees right through that, because of course, that is older Dean’s bullshit too. 

“There’s a scenic area if you take the next right.” Older Dean directs them to a little rest area a few miles on. It’s deserted and they don’t get out of the car. 

The silence gets heavier and heavier, and it’s obvious neither of them wants to break it, but older Dean finally leans forward, elbows on his knees, hands tugging at his hair, and says “We should talk about what happens if we don’t find a cure.” 

Dean looks away, out at what passes for scenery in Kansas. It’s nice. A little copse of trees and a bit of flat grass that isn’t quite a meadow. It would be a good place to picnic, if Dean was the type of person who did picnics. 

“Yeah,” he says. 

“Look, you’re not dying for me. I’m the one who got cursed, I’m the one who’ll take the consequences. Besides, I’m older. I’ve already lived longer than I had any right to, so…” 

“I’m not even supposed to be here,” Dean says. “I’m just a copy of a person. It literally does not matter if I die.”

“Oh shut up,” older Dean says. His shoulders are tense. “Look. It might not even come to it. Sammy’s a wizard at figuring out how to reverse-engineer a cure for this kind of shit. But -” 

“This is _your_ life, not mine.” Dean turns back to his older self, and he can’t help the bitterness in his voice. “These people obviously want and need _you._ Are you that willing to leave Sam? Are you really willing to just walk out on all your friends? Cas too?” 

Older Dean glances sharply at him, searching his face with narrowed eyes, but Dean just glares back at him. If older Dean doesn’t want to tell him about Cas, then he’s not going to help him get there. 

“It’s not like I want to die,” older Dean says between gritted teeth. “Okay? But we’re talking about one of us having to make that choice, and it’s not gonna be you. You’re just a -”

“I swear to god, if you tell me that I’m just a kid, I’m going to punch you,” Dean snaps. “We were never kids. You fucking know that. And I’m twenty-six, okay, it’s not like I haven’t already seen shit.” 

Older Dean sits back, but his hands fidget restlessly on his knees. “Okay. Fine. Fair. But think about this outside of you and me, okay? You’ve got a twenty-six year-old and a forty-one year-old, and you’ve got to kill one of them off. Moral thing to do is let the older guy bite it, don’t you think?” 

“You can’t just take it out of context like that. Like, this isn’t some moral attributes pros and cons list. I’m a freakin’ carbon copy living in the future, you can’t just ignore that. And you’ve got shit to do here. Like, y’all are being real cagey about your ‘kid.’” Dean throws in the air quotes for good measure. “But whatever’s going on with him and whatever else is in your life outside of this curse, clearly you’re supposed to be around for it. So it should be me. I’m an extra, man. This is what you do with spare parts.” 

Older Dean glares right back at him for a moment in silence, then he looks away, jaw clenching as he stares blankly out the window. “You wouldn’t have to be,” he says finally, his rough voice quieter this time. “If I die, you could just, you know, fill in. It’s weird, I know, but… Sam wouldn’t kick you out or anything. You’d… you’d have a fresh start here.” 

“Yeah, great, I can be a copy and a replacement. How do you think that fucking feels?” 

Older Dean sighs and runs a hand over his face. He shuts his eyes for a second, and Dean looks at the crows feet around his eyes, the lines deepened in his forehead, the couple of gray hairs in his neglected facial hair. 

Dean doesn’t really mind any of that - he thinks, objectively, he looks pretty good for forty-one. There isn’t one thing he can pick out that communicates the feeling of brokenness he gets from this Dean, it’s more something he holds in his expression, like he’s trying so hard all the time not to fall apart. 

In spite of himself, Dean feels a little stab of empathy for older Dean. He feels that way too, a lot of the time. 

“Yeah. Well.” Older Dean opens his eyes and sighs again. “No use arguing with my pigheaded self, I guess. Let’s head on back. We’ll talk about this again, when it comes to it.” 

By the time they get back to the bunker, Sam has finished reading the play twice already and is making notes, while Cas sits next to him and annotates from the Greek version. Jack is sitting at the end of the table, looking bored. 

“One of you nerds want to give us the Sparks-notes version?” Older Dean asks, tossing his jacket over the back of a chair. 

“Yeah,” Sam says distractedly. “Hang on. Cas, I don’t think it can be ‘lascivious,’ the meter’s all wrong for the line.” Sam looks up, and he’s got that look that Dean knows too well from whenever his little brother is deep in a project and cannot be disturbed for love or money. “Can we wait for Charlie? She’s coming over for dinner, and I told her we’d fill her in then too. Might as well get you all at once.” 

“Oh sure,” older Dean says, rolling his eyes. “Wouldn’t want to make you repeat yourself. Not like it’s about my life or anything.” 

“Hey, you don’t want to read the play yourself, you get to wait for the presentation. Go cook something.” 

Older Dean mutters something under his breath, but he heads off to the kitchen. Jack gets up and follows him. Dean hesitates for a moment, but Sam and Cas are already deep in discussion about etymology and anachronisms, so he trails after older Dean and Jack too. 

Jack is saying “It’s just Charlie. I don’t see what’s wrong with mac n’ cheese.” 

“Hm, yeah, you tell her that she’s ‘just Charlie,’ then. See how that goes.” 

“Who’s Charlie?” Dean asks, leaning against the breakfast nook and watching older Dean fumble around with pots and pans in the cupboard. 

“Probably the coolest person you’ll ever meet,” older Dean says. “And/or the geekiest. Depends how you want to look at it.” 

“She’s a computer hacker,” Jack offers. “And a cosplayer. And a lesbian.” 

Older Dean hits his head on the cupboard door, emerging from behind it with his scowl back in place. “ _Jack_ ,” he says, looking faintly embarrassed. 

“What?” Jack looks between the two Deans, his eyebrows drawn together. Dean can see the resemblance to Cas in that sort of innocent confusion, even if Cas isn’t his biological father. 

Older Dean rubs his forehead. He seems caught somewhere between exasperated and flustered. “You don’t just… you don’t tell random people that someone’s a lesbian.”

Jack just frowns harder. 

Dean bites his lip to keep from laughing at him. These angels and half-angels. Seriously. 

“But… He’s not a random person,” Jack says, gesturing at Dean. “He’s you. And why not, anyway? Shouldn’t ‘computer hacker’ be the secret, if anything? It’s not like it’s a bad thing.” 

“No, of course not, that’s not what I…” Older Dean glances helplessly at Dean, who raises his hands as if to say _not my kid._ “I just mean, you don’t tell people because that’s not yours to tell, okay? And because you wouldn’t have said ‘she’s a straight girl’ in your list of fun facts, so Charlie being gay shouldn’t be any more of a note of interest. Got it?” 

Jack’s brow is still furrowed, but he nods. “Okay. Sure.” 

Dean clears his throat. “Uh. So. Charlie’s a cosplayer, huh?” he looks between them. “What the hell is a cosplayer?” 

Older Dean laughs, and some of the tension eases from his face. He sets his pots down and goes to the fridge. “Oh man. You have no idea. You know what LARPing is, right?” 

“Sure…” 

“Well, it’s kinda like that. Which Charlie does too. But cosplay, it’s usually at conventions and stuff. Like, uh, comic con type stuff? She goes to these things dressed up as fictional characters. Like, I don’t know, female Indiana Jones was a couple years ago, I think.” 

“Huh, sounds hot,” Dean says without thinking. 

Older Dean shoots him a look. “Okay. Yeah. I’m gonna need you to get a lot cooler about a lot of things real quick. Like, seeing women as people. And definitely respecting the part where you just heard that Charlie’s gay.” 

Dean can feel his face heating up. At least Jack is only looking at him with the same general puzzlement as before, but it’s a pretty rough put down from his own future self. No wonder this Dean hates him. 

“Uh,” Dean says. “Right. Sorry.” 

Older Dean shrugs. He pulls a chopping board from somewhere and hands it to Dean. “Here. You can do the onions as penance.” 

They cook together, all three of them, and it’s weirdly nice. It feels frikkin’ domestic. It’s the first time Dean can remember really cooking with another person. Sam doesn’t count, because he was more of a hindrance than a help really, and he kinda remembers baking cookies or something with mom, but the memory is blurry and mostly just a sense of pride and the smell of ginger. 

Jack is something of a force of chaos in the kitchen, but older Dean is patient with him in a way that reminds Dean of Sammy, and he’s obviously eager to help. Older Dean gives him some potatoes to wash, peel, and chop, and Jack is painfully careful in the way he follows his instructions. 

They talk about Star Wars. Sam showed Dean the newest trilogy over the last couple of nights in what Sam and older Dean call “the cave”, and has promised to sit through the stand alone films with him too, albeit in a long-suffering sort of way. Dean was blown away by the special effects at first - he was never going to admit it to Sam or anyone, but he’d gotten an uneasy, nervous sort of feeling watching the first movie because everything looked so real. But then he’d gotten over it and just enjoyed being back in one of his favorite sci-fi worlds. 

“Oh man, just wait until you see Rogue One though,” older Dean says as he’s tossing chicken in a bowl of something oily. “Sammy should have had you watch that one in between. It’s cool to see in the order they came out because it talks more about The Force as, like, a religion, you know? Like what it actually means to people who just live in the galaxy and aren’t jedi or sith or whatever. It definitely felt like they were building up to something in the main trilogy by including a movie about that, but I think they just kind of lost the nerve when they switched directors.” 

“I like the porgs,” Jack says. 

“Of course you do,” older Dean says. “You and Cas, man. Cas about cried when he saw them. I think if he still had his full powers he’d have gone and created one.” 

Jack stops chopping potatoes for a moment and looks thoughtfully at older Dean. “I bet I could make one. Should I try?” 

“What?” Dean says.

At the same time, older Dean says “Oh, Jesus, no.” 

They all look at each other. Older Dean wags a half-seasoned chicken breast at Jack. “First of all, no. Don’t go drawing attention to yourself using power like that right now. Second of all, also no, because you know that shit never turns out well for us and you’d probably create some half-crazed Frankenstein’s monster that looks like a giant guinea pig. Third of all,” older Dean turns the chicken on Dean. “Yeah. Jack’s got that kind of juice. Sometimes.” 

Older Dean slaps the chicken back into his bowl before putting it on a greased pan with the others. 

“Huh,” Dean says. He eyes Jack. He can’t imagine anything having the kind of power to create an entire creature like that, let alone something that looks like a sulky Hollister model. “Well, I am going to be haunted by that scene with the blue milk for the rest of my life.”

Older Dean laughs. “Yeah, obviously. Okay, get some butter and start frying the onions, would you?”

“What are we making, anyway?” Dean cuts a generous amount of butter into a pan and dumps in the onions he chopped. 

Older Dean goes to the sink and uses his elbow to turn on the faucet, washing his hands thoroughly after touching the raw chicken before he sticks the pan into the oven. “Well, chicken, obviously. And the potatoes and onions are for what I call ‘Heretic Kugel.’” Older Dean grins down at the casserole dish he’s greasing now. “Eileen taught me how to make it.” 

It’s the lightest Dean has seen him so far. Here in the kitchen, like this, Dean can almost imagine that this strange older version of himself isn’t so far gone from the person Dean knows. 

Charlie turns up at the same time as Eileen, and older Dean shoots Sam an extremely dirty look for not telling him that they were having the additional company. “I would have made more food,” older Dean complains to Sam over Charlie’s shoulder as she gives him a hug. “You gotta give me the guest list ahead of time.” 

“Sorry. You always make enough to feed a small army anyway,” Sam says, still engrossed in his notes. 

“We _are_ a small army,” Charlie says cheerfully. She turns, eyes searching until they land on Dean and she _beams._ “Holy Jiminy Cricket,” she says. “Wow.” She steps toward Dean, hand extended. "I'm Charlie, presumably your new best friend." 

Dean shakes her hand. Charlie isn't like what he'd imagined. He feels embarrassed that the word "lesbian" had conjured up two distinct images for him and Charlie isn't anything like either of them. "Lesbian" has always meant either fantasy porn shit, or else the short-haired butch women in leather jackets that Dean has occasionally run into outside biker bars and has always secretly admired for the pure defiant energy they seemed to radiate. 

Charlie is just a girl - pretty, ginger, bouncing with nervous energy. Dean likes her immediately, with that gut instinct feeling he rarely gets about a person. 

They all settle in around the table and Sam tells them the story of _Xerodicus and the Grief of Ages_ while they eat. He's careful to keep his face turned towards Eileen, and only speaks when his mouth isn't full - which certainly are not the table manners Dean raised him with. 

"Okay, so according to the play, Xerodicus was this guy who was born to a very poor woman who traded him to a hermit in the woods for a season's worth of grain when he was three years old. The hermit dude, name of Odinian, taught Xero how to hunt from the moment he got him, and Xero grew up a woodsman who never missed his mark, etc. When he was ten or twelve, the twin gods Artemis and Apollo were hunting some impossible to catch golden bird, only to arrive in a clearing and find this random boy collecting his arrow from its corpse. 

"So Artemis and Apollo have a big long fight about who gets to keep the kid, because Artemis is the goddess of the hunt, but Apollo is the god of archery. This goes on for several pages until they decide to cut open the golden bird and if its heart is pierced, Apollo gets to take him, but if anything else is the cause of death then Artemis gets him. Anyway, what do you know, the arrow went right to the center of the bird's heart, and Xerodicus goes off to join Apollo's merry band of followers." 

Sam takes a moment to stuff some kugel in his face before continuing. 

"A bunch of stuff happens, and Xerodicus gets a reputation for being Apollo's best hunter, never misses his mark, can bring down anything. Some years in, when he's like fourteen or so, he meets another of Apollo's followers, a boy named Clesus who Apollo picked up because he was very pretty and wrote beautiful poetry. Xero falls rapidly and completely in love with Clesus, who likes him but needs to be won over. So Xero does a bunch of stuff trying to prove his love and finally after like two years of this, Clesus gives in and they become lovers. 

"Meanwhile, some shenanigans are going on in Olympus, Zeus and Apollo and Dionysus, who is the god of wine and partying, are all having a huge argument about the value of a human soul. So they go through all these acts of like “a soul has value when it does good things for other people,” or “a soul has value when it recognizes the good in itself,” or “a soul has no inherent meaning and human life is pointless except for entertainment value.” 

“It’s kinda heavy handed, considering the time it was written. Euphorion was writing during an age of pre-Socratic philosophy, which…” Sam glances at the blank looks on Dean and older Dean’s faces and says “Never mind. It’s probably not important. Anyway, they’re talking a lot about souls and the meaning of human life, but that’s like a whole separate part of the play that isn’t interacting with the main story. In the main story, some king of Crete sees Clesus in the woods and wants him to marry one of his daughters because he’s so pretty - which isn’t creepy at all. And obviously, Clesus is in love with Xerodicus, which was totally fine at the time, but also homosocial norms didn’t necessarily mean you couldn’t have male lovers and be married to a woman at the same time. 

“So anyway, Clesus says ‘no, thanks,’ to the king, and he gets pissy and has one of his soldiers cut Clesus’ throat. Xerodicus finds him dying in the woods and has a very sad soliloquy. And then Xero goes crazy, dips a bunch of his arrows in Clesus’ blood, and massacres half the king’s army, the king, his daughters, and all the king’s servants. He’s standing there, with the pavements running red with blood, when Apollo finds him and sees what he’s done. 

“Apollo asks Xerodicus why he has murdered so many people, and Xero says “I have given up my soul to revenge.” Or maybe “for revenge.” It can kind of be translated either way. So Apollo says he obviously can’t have Xero around mass-murdering the Greeks, and he tells him to go take one last shot at a tree or something and Apollo will seal up his consciousness there where his grief can’t do any more destruction. But, and really you’d think Apollo would see this coming, Xerodicus takes one of the arrows dipped in Clesus’ blood, and stabs it into his own chest. So Apollo makes Xero immortal, because he promised, but he has Athena, who is the goddess of pottery, find someone who can make them a container strong enough to hold Xero, and he seals the marksman up in that. 

“And that’s kind of how it ends.” Sam shrugs. “I don’t know how much of it is historical, but he makes a reference to “black-eyed” creatures beneath the earth a couple of times, and talks about losing his soul after Clesus died, so it sounds a lot like Xerodicus might have made some kind of deal.”

“Great,” older Dean says, pushing what remains of his food around on his plate. “Awesome.”

Charlie leans forward, face in her hands and sighs wistfully. “It’s awful, but it’s kinda romantic too, don’t you think?” 

“No,” Dean and older Dean say at the same time. 

Charlie smiles at them. “I just mean, loving someone so much that you lose your mind when they die, that’s something. _Better to have loved and lost, then never to have loved at all_.” 

“Okay, Tennyson,” Eileen says. “It’s still better not to kill a bunch of innocent people and get trapped in a vase for all eternity.” 

Dean has to agree with Eileen on this one. 

“Is there anything in there about how to kill this guy?” Older Dean asks. 

“Well,” Sam taps his fingers against the table. “I’m not sure yet. There were a couple survivors from the massacre at Crete, and it seems like maybe they used something from the armory that was blessed by another god, but that sounds like it was a shield and not a weapon. Still, could be something. Cas says the translation is a mess, so we’re trying to figure out what that actually was.” 

Cas, who has taken a small amount of kugel to be polite, or probably just because older Dean made it, nods, mouth full of potato. “The student wrote it as “shield of the gods”, which is understandable in the context of the passage, but the literal translation is…” Cas hesitates and swallows his food. “It’s sort of… I’d read it as “tree of life,” if it were Hebrew. But in Greek, maybe “wood of the divine”?” 

Older Dean, Dean, and Charlie all snort in unison. Sam glares at them in succession, while Cas looks benignly puzzled. 

The conversation goes on, over whether the arrow being dipped in mortal blood has any significance, whether Xerodicus sold his soul and if so what exactly it was for, and if they might be able to seal Xero back up in the broken vase or another kind of demon box. 

Dean doesn’t have a lot to contribute, really, so he mostly listens and eats the home cooked meal and watches how almost everyone goes for seconds of this food that he helped prepare. He has to remind himself to just enjoy being at a table full of good food and people who like him, people who are trying to save him, and not think too hard about where he was a week ago, sleeping alone in his car with a bottle of whiskey and a packet of beef jerky. 

After dinner, Charlie snags him away from cleanup. “I’m going to show Dean 2.0 how to use the internet,” she says. “OG Dean, can we have one of your burner laptops?” 

Older Dean gives her a mock scowl, but he just says “Fine, whatever. Take your pick.” 

“Hey,” Dean says. “Shouldn’t _I_ be OG Dean? I’m the one from earlier in our timeline.” 

“Hm.” Charlie links her arm in his and gently steers him out of the living room toward the cave. “Interesting point. I’ll consider it.” 

Charlie mutters darkly over a couple of laptops before picking one and patting the couch beside her. Dean joins her and Charlie zips through a bunch of code on the screen, talking about a mile a minute. 

“I’m setting you up with an encrypted drive, because other Dean is a mess and never remembers to have me look at his computer whenever he gets a new one. At least Sam can handle a walk-through on how to set up even the most basic of security measures, but gods forbid Dean even has to look at code.” Charlie’s fingers stop flying across the keys, and then she’s opening up a browser tab and saying “Okay, now a lot has happened in the last fifteen years, buddy boy, so keep up.” 

It’s frankly a lot to process on the go. Dean has already become aware that the internet is much more of a _thing_ than it was for him in 2005. He’s used it, of course, he had a couple email accounts and obviously he’s used it for, like, porn, but beyond that and using it to get news stories from out of state, he hasn’t spent a whole lot of time on it. 

The way Charlie talks about it makes it seem like people live their whole lives on the internet now. 

“Okay, and then if you’re using Google Chrome, which obviously you’re going to because I just told you it’s the superior browser, you can open this up and it takes you to an incognito mode. Which just means that it won’t keep anything in your history.” Charlie winks at him. “So you can watch all the anime you want and no one will know, just make sure you close your tabs.” 

Dean feels the heat in his face, because he has definitely never talked to a girl about porn before. And, now that he thinks about it, older Dean definitely had a point earlier. He’s never really had a friend who was a girl. To be fair, he doesn’t really have friends at all, but there’s barely a girl he’s exchanged more than two sentences with whose pants he hasn’t been trying to get into. And… Maybe that’s not great. 

“Uh… I… Okay. Thanks,” Dean says weakly. 

Charlie abruptly shuts the laptop and puts it on the coffee table, kicking her feet out too with a long sigh and pulling one of the throw pillows - and yes, there are throw pillows - into her chest. Dean can’t help thinking that she looks adorable, all small and nestled up and looking up at him with big hazel eyes. 

“Listen,” she says. “I’m really bad at lying. Like, really, comically bad. Especially to you, even if I don’t know, you know, you you. So I’m just gonna tell you, Sam called me and asked me to come over. Don’t get mad at him, he was just trying to look out for you, but he said you were kind of freaking out about future you and Cas.” 

Dean swallows, caught off guard and abruptly torn between defensiveness and the need to talk to someone about this. “I… I don’t…” 

Charlie pats his knee a little aggressively. “I remember 2005. It was a pretty rough time to be queer. I mean, that was the year George Takei came out and it was a whole big deal, and now he’s like, gay king of the internet.” 

“Wait, George Takei, like Sulu?” 

“Yeah!” Charlie grins. “‘It’s okay to be Takei!’ That’s his motto, and I love him. We’ve also got Ian McKellan, Neil Patrick Harris, Frank Ocean… Anyway, it’s still definitely scary sometimes, in some parts of the country, but most people are super chill. But like, back in your day, all we ever heard about was gay people getting killed or killing themselves, right? And I remember growing up feeling so small and alone. And then the internet happened and I started finding other people who felt like me, even if I couldn’t meet them in person, and things got so much better just knowing how many of us are out there. I mean, I’m saying it like “one of us, one of us,” but it’s like, a whole community.” 

“Do I… Has future me talked to you about this at all?” 

Charlie sighs again, and she looks kinda sad. The complicated sadness that seems to live and breathe in 2020. 

“Not really. I try, you know. But OG Dean, he’s got… other issues.” 

“Yeah. I noticed.” Dean looks down at his hands. He’s never talked to anyone about this. Never. He can feel his heart pounding. He can't even be mad at Sam, not when they both know he can't possibly talk about this with his brother. 

“You don’t have to talk to me either. No one should force you to talk about this, okay? It’s your decision. But I want you to know that you can. I’m not gonna try and label you or judge you for whatever it is you’re dealing with.” 

It is terrifying to find that he wants to talk about it. 

“It’s just,” Dean says, and he hates how small his voice is. He clears his throat. “I like girls, you know. So it’s not… but yeah, I… I think I could probably like boys too. But I don’t… I haven’t…” 

Charlie pats him on the knee again, a little soft this time, and leaves her hand there. “Thanks for telling me, Dean.” 

“You already knew.”

“Yeah, but that’s not the same as you telling me.” Charlie gives him an absolutely dazzling smile. “Cas is pretty dreamy, huh?” 

Dean scowls at her, but he can’t muster up any menace for it. His hands are shaking a little. “Dude, he’s obviously banging older me. I am not going to step in that mess.” 

Charlie’s face is all mischievous joy. “Oh, I don’t know,” she says, grinning. “I think maybe that mess _needs_ someone to step in it.” 

They somehow end up bickering over Lord of the Rings, and the next thing Dean knows they’re watching The Hobbit and complaining loudly over the film’s artistic license, and it’s not how Dean would have bet on his first ever coming out going, but Charlie is just a person and she seems to like Dean for his taste in pop culture as much as their apparently mutual not-straight-ness. Older Dean and Jack join them at some point, older Dean complaining that Sam and Eileen are being gross and in love, and Jack complaining that they started the movie without him. Charlie nudges Dean every time Ian McKellen is on screen, but otherwise it’s just a grossly domestic movie night. 

It’s the same bittersweet as everything else here. 

Charlie says goodnight after the movie, hugs Dean and whispers in his ear “Just remember… it’s okay to be Takei!” 

Older Dean looks suspiciously at their muffled laughter as Charlie lets go of him, but he doesn’t ask. As older Dean walks Charlie to the door, Dean hears him say “I love you,” and Charlie answer “I know.” 

It’s so dorky and loveable. It aches.

Sam and Eileen have already disappeared, and Cas is sitting in an armchair reading _The Odyssey._

Dean spends too long looking at Cas, thinking about Charlie’s words, thinking about Sappho, and Xerodicus, and the whole gay mess. He wants to go talk to Cas, but he can hear older Dean coming back from the door, and this isn’t Dean’s life. 

This is all borrowed time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter content warnings: internalized homophobia, past child abuse (physical and emotional), abandonment, self-esteem issues, self-hatred, self-harm (punching a wall), talk of sacrificing oneself, homophobia, very brief reference to murder and suicide in the lgbtq+ community, coming out, reference to canon-typical violence, death of a character within a myth


	10. Jade and honey

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *PLEASE READ ME I AM AN IMPORTANT NOTE*  
> Upfront Content Warning: This chapter contains a graphic depiction of torture/body horror. It is detailed and gross. If you would rather not read that, this chapter contains pretty much zero plot (used it all up last time, I guess) and is totally skippable. That or you can skip to the end notes and scroll back up until you find the name "Cedric" and you can read from there.  
> This chapter also references sexual assault, though not in detail. Please see end notes for additional content warnings. /end *Important Note*
> 
> Additional note: I added an end note to Chapter 8 because I feel that misrepresented pederasty somewhat. It's complicated. Might bring it up in future chapters, but in case I don't fit it in, wanted to mention that here. 
> 
> Unnecessary third part of note: Uhhhh... the second half of this chapter is about drugs and a collection of bluegrass lyrics. It's a bit experimental and I don't know how else to preface it other than by saying that I was recently alone in a hotel room with a bottle of Jack Daniels, dancing by myself to Devil Makes Three.

Of course, this Charlie isn't really forty-one year-old Dean's Charlie. He can't look at her without seeing the blood in that bathtub, the mutilated corpse of one of his closest friends. Charlie was one of the few people who had ever coaxed a softness out of Dean, who had loved Dean for his somewhat repressed geekiness. 

Dean should have protected her. He should have been able to do that. Charlie is a badass, and he knows it, but his Charlie wasn't a hunter, hadn't been raised to it, didn't know how to fight with her fists. She was so little. 

Dean and Apocalypse World Charlie have come to love each other too. They had that same instinctual feeling about each other, that sibling kind of affection where half their joy is in annoying each other. 

But Charlie will always be someone that Dean has lost. 

Grief is so complicated in this life. 

Dean walks Charlie out to the door, and when he comes back into the living room, Cas looks up from his book with an expression that is a painful sort of neutral he's perfected over the years. Like it doesn't hurt him every time Dean rejects him, even in the little ways. 

Younger Dean is getting water from the kitchen, watching them over his glass, and Dean thinks that, in another life, he wouldn't have been like this. Dean wonders if there's a world out there where he was allowed to grow up soft - a world where as a child he'd been kind and nurturing without having to be a parent, where he'd been loved and loving without having to be an emotional partner to his dad. But maybe the world wouldn't have let him grow up soft anyway, even if mom hadn't died. Maybe soft, fragile, pretty boys like Dean always get broken by life. 

Dean can tell that, already, this younger Dean is different than the person he was. It's not just Dean not wanting to remember what it was like to be twenty-six - he doesn't think it's just that. He's pretty sure that being here has already shifted something in young Dean. That just a few days of being treated like a person, of having Sam back, a Sam who has already worked through all the issues they had fifteen years ago, has changed him. That it's probably Cas, too. Dean sees the way Cas looks at his younger self, that sad fondness and a touch of wonder, the same affection he gives to Dean. Dean knows that at twenty-six, he'd be so starved for it, that no one had ever looked at him like that before. No one had ever loved him so openly, in a way he was allowed to feel. 

Or maybe, Dean tries to tell himself, tries to board up that train of thought, maybe he's wrong and it _is_ just Hell. Maybe he really can't remember who he was before forty years in the pit. 

"Well," Dean says to the three-way silence hanging between them all. "'Night. See you in the morning." 

He doesn't meet either Cas or younger Dean's eyes as he heads down to his room.

Was he really so different before Hell? Could he look himself in the eyes in the bathroom mirror back then? 

_I know how dead you are inside, how worthless you feel. I know how you look into a mirror, and hate what you see… Daddy’s blunt little instrument._

Dean fishes the third of a bottle of whiskey out from under his bed. He’d already been well on his way to being a functional alcoholic by the time he’d gone to collect Sam at Stanford at the age of twenty-six, but yeah, the drinking definitely got worse after he crawled out of that grave. He still thinks about the heat of that sun sometimes, the feeling of gravedirt on his skin and the unbearable thirst in his throat. 

The alcohol helps him not to think so much. 

It’s weird things that trigger Dean now. He hates that word, hates how he knows that his younger self would have talked about “trigger warnings” as a bunch of pansy bullshit. It never gets to him in a fight - maybe it’s the adrenaline, the necessity of the moment, but Dean is damn near unbreakable under stress or pain. So it doesn’t make sense to him, really, that anything less than that could make him lose his grip. 

And Dean can usually deal with movies or TV or books or whatever. That’s not really the problem. Yeah, he kinda has a hard time with graphic scenes of rape or torture, but he holds it together if it comes on during Game of Thrones or something. 

The things that seem to trigger full-blown flashbacks don’t make any sense at all to Dean. Once it was _Amazing Grace_ , coming on the radio when Dean was parked at a scenic overlook in the Rockies. He’d been alone, leaning back in the driver’s seat, just resting his eyes for a minute, and then the song had come on and suddenly the darkness beneath his eyelids had become the dancing shadows and flickering red light of his nightmares. He’d gone rigid in his seat, not really aware of what his body was doing, that terrible feeling of being unable to move consuming him. 

There was an awful broken voice singing. 

They’d been new. For a few days, they sang through the pain. _Amazing Grace_ . Always _Amazing Grace_. It had almost, almost, given Dean the smallest flicker of hope, too. It was a sound of defiance. It was a resistance to the constant torture, the unending torment. It was a reminder that the person singing had once been alive and human - this, this was their humanity. 

The sound didn’t last long. They broke, the way everyone did, falling back on the primitive screams more suited to the eternity of punishment that awaited them. 

Dean hadn’t seen them, didn’t know he remembered the brief hours when the hymn was a soundtrack to his own suffering, but there it was, embedded in those lyrics. 

When Dean had come back to himself, all of his cells reassembled from the mess they’d been carved into, he found that he had raised his arms above his head, fingertips outstretched as if he were spread-eagled on the rack. He’d lowered them, embarrassed, breath catching and heaving out of him too fast, legs twitching. 

Once it was Cas’ hands on his stomach. They’d been making out in Dean’s bed, and Cas had been kissing the freckles on his shoulders, arms, and chest. He’d kissed Dean’s ribs, his stomach, down to his hips, thumbs brushing under the waistline of Dean’s jeans. Cas had teased his mouth over the front of Dean’s pants, lips pressed open along the line of his zipper, with his hands reaching back up Dean’s body. His fingertips had raked down Dean’s stomach, nails a light scratch over the softness of his belly, and Dean had lost his mind. 

He’d been taken straight back there, back to that position where he couldn’t move, couldn’t escape. There had been so many hands in him, so many nails and knives and screws and teeth. Anything. Everything. The unbearable, the unthinkable. 

Torture in Hell wasn’t like torture on earth. It was part of what made it so easy to lose your humanity - the pain was already inhuman. Mortal pain held some promise of end, some intrinsic assurance that there was only so much the mind and body could endure before unconsciousness or death took over. But in Hell, there was no limit. The amount of pain was incomprehensible to the living. 

And Dean was back there, back with those hooks digging into him, stretching him out and open like a painter stretches a canvas. He was back with the claws scraping over his belly, not cutting in yet, more of a caress than anything, the thing that was one of Alastair’s apprentices appraising him with its smokey black eyes. It wasn’t human. They were sometimes, they could be, but this one was smoke and fire, solid but changing the parameters of its form even as it looked Dean over and licked its approximate lips. 

Dean couldn’t move. He could never move. The most he could do was wriggle like a fish caught on a hook. 

The demon took something in its hand then - or maybe it was part of its hand, Dean couldn’t be sure - something black and writhing. The demon pressed the bit of itself or whatever it was to Dean’s side just beneath his ribs. 

It burrowed inside him. 

The thing chewed through his skin, then slipped in, deep into him. Dean could feel it sliding through him, feel it eating its way into his stomach. He felt it growing in him as it devoured his insides, felt it when it seemed to split in two, then as it multiplied. 

It was indescribable, unthinkable pain. 

As the things inside him ate and ate and grew and multiplied, his stomach began to swell with them. Dean could only writhe, crying out and watching as his distended belly stretched his skin. He was as round and enlarged as a third trimester pregnancy when his stomach burst. Hundreds of pale wriggling maggots spilled out of his concave stomach, a nightmarish birth, still more of them working their way through his insides. 

Unending, unbearable. 

Dean experienced every second of the feeling of being eaten from the inside out. 

With thirty years of torture, things got creative. 

Dean came back convulsing on his mattress, his own hand scrambling at his stomach, the other hand stuffed into his mouth as muffled sounds poured out of him. Cas was no longer kneeling between his legs, sitting next to him instead with a hand firmly on his shoulder. Cas had a bright pink mark on one cheekbone where Dean must have hit him or lashed out wildly with a limb. Dean didn’t really have time to feel guilt about that. The moment he was back in his head, he was rolling over the side of the bed, falling to his hands and knees and vomiting onto the concrete floor. 

Even with his stomach empty, Dean stayed down, half-retching, half-sobbing on his knees. It was the violation almost as much as the pain sometimes. 

Cas sat on the edge of the bed behind Dean, his hand coming to rest again on Dean’s shoulder. Dean whimpered, pitiful and pleading as a child. He was still in it, the specific memory fading but the amalgam of thirty years on the rack rushing in to fill the gap. 

For thirty years, he had made the choice over and over again to stay there. It was beyond cruelty, to have made the choice once to save his brother, only to have to choose like that every day for decades. It wasn’t long before he had started to wonder why he was doing it - after all, someone was going to torture these people, why shouldn’t it be him? It wasn’t like he was actually saving anyone by saying no… Every time his thoughts started down this path, he forced himself to think of every one of the other prisoners of Hell as Sam. He’d visualized them all with Sammy’s face - Sammy as he would always be to Dean, around eight years old and smiling with a missing tooth. He clung to that image every time Alastair came asking. Dean told himself it would be like hurting Sam, and for a long time when he had nothing else to keep him from saying yes, that thought saved some tiny part of his soul. 

It couldn’t save him forever though. For the first twenty years, when Alastair made him the offer, Dean told him to stick it where the sun don’t shine. Often the words had come out from a newly constructed mouth, his body miraculously whole again just to start the torture all over anew. 

For twenty years, Dean had told Alastair that, until one time the demon had shrugged and said “Well, if you insist,” and moved to press up between Dean’s spread legs. 

Every day for the next ten years, Dean was tortured - carved and sliced and torn apart until he was nothing, nothing but a raw throat and a pair of eyeballs, until he was just scraps of flesh lying on the floor. When he’d been put together into something like his old shape again, Alastair would come, and when Dean told him no, Alastair would take him apart in other ways. 

_Oh yes, pretty boy. Is this how daddy used to do it?_

Dean shuddered on the floor of his bedroom some eight or nine years after clawing his way out of the grave, spasming in the cold-sweat of his bare chest. Cas' hand on his skin was like fire. 

It was Cas' hand, hot and solid, wrapped once again around his shoulder, that brought him back. It was Cas gripping him once again, raising him out of himself. 

Dean turned around on his knees, grasping Cas' leg like a toddler, and buried his face in Cas' lap. 

"M'sorry," Dean mumbled into the warmth of Cas' thighs. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry." 

Cas fit his hand along the fingerprints he'd left behind long ago, lining his hand up to the scar this time, and Dean could tell from the hitch in Cas' breath that he felt it too - that ghostly searing heat between them, the memory of his deliverance. 

It was Cas saving him. 

Cas' other hand stroked Dean's hair, ran gently down the back of his neck. 

"You do not need to seek absolution, Dean," Cas said, voice gentle as his hands, gentle as that First Corinthians kind of love. _Patient. Kind._ "Not from me or from anyone. You have always and will always deserve salvation." 

Dean's shoulders shook, but he wasn't crying, not really. Cas was so tender with him and Dean wanted to tell him not to be, tell him that Dean didn't deserve goodness to be placed on him like that. 

“You are good to your core,” Cas continued, low and soothing. “You never deserved to endure the things you faced in Hell. Whatever may have come of Heaven and The Plan, I still know you to be righteous. You are worthy, Dean. Worthy of all forgiveness and grace.” 

Dean sniffled into the fabric of Cas’ dress pants. “You know, most people just say ‘it’s okay’ or ‘there, there,’” he said, a little wetly, not raising his head. 

Cas’ hand patted the top of Dean’s head. “It’s okay,” he said. “There, there.” 

Dean snorted, pulling himself reluctantly to his knees, wiping his face in the crook of his elbow. He felt suddenly so exhausted. He was weary. He was so tired of fighting himself. 

“Will it always be like this?” Dean asked, looking up at Cas on his knees, asking like a prayer. “Will I ever be able to lock this shit up, or…?” 

Cas’ fingers caressed his face. “I don’t know,” he admitted. 

Dean closed his eyes. “I don’t know why I… It’s not your fault. I shouldn’t… I hate that I fall apart like this, Cas. I should be stronger than this. I’m supposed to be able to handle this shit.” 

“Says who?” Cas’ touch was feather light on his cheek. “Who would expect you to be undamaged by forty years of Hell?” 

Dean didn’t have an answer to that. He could still taste the acidic sweetness of bile in his mouth, still smell it on the floor. 

“I didn’t mean to hit you,” he said, because there was nothing else to say. This was not the first time Cas had witnessed Dean’s flashbacks or nightmares. 

Dean unscrews the cap of the whiskey and gulps it down now, taking in about three shots in one go. It burns the back of his throat and makes his eyes water. The alcohol helps. It deadens him enough to the stimuli that might otherwise send him under, makes everything a little farther away. Of course, it makes the good things farther away too, but he’ll take that. 

Dean finishes the bottle before he turns out the light and lays down on top of his covers. He only really sleeps under the sheets when he’s with Cas, which is stupid, but it’s too vulnerable without him. He can’t sleep if he’s not fully clothed and ready to go, not alone anyway. 

Dean lays on his stomach and tries to turn off his brain, but it just keeps spinning. He’ll probably be dead soon, or someone will be. He doesn’t let himself think about where he’ll go when that happens. A part of him just… It’s not that he wants to die, not really. It’s just that, when he does, he wants it to be over. Heaven or Hell, whatever’s waiting for him, he just wants to know that that’s it, there’s no more false hope in coming back, no more hurt he can cause Sam. 

It doesn’t seem fair to Dean that Hell is as close as what humans can come to imagining, but Heaven isn’t. Heaven is better than the alternative, better than Hell or Purgatory, but just reliving old memories? It hardly seems like the opposite to eternal torture. The thing about knowing what Heaven is really like is that everytime Dean makes a truly good memory, a part of him is always thinking _is this what I’ll see for eternity?_

Of course, that would be assuming that Dean goes to Heaven when he dies for good, and considering the current state of affairs with God, Dean isn’t exactly counting on that. If he did though, he knows what he’d see this time. 

It started as a dumb joke. Cas said something completely serious about being able to taste colors over breakfast one day, and Dean had said “Oh man, one of these days I am going to get you so baked.” 

Cas had frowned at him in confusion, and Sam had only seemed marginally more in the loop, but Mary, bless her, had looked up from her coffee and eyed Dean.

“Would it shock you if I said I was on board for that?” she’d asked. 

“What?” Dean stared at his mom, this woman who was maybe the most complex relationship of his life. “Are you serious?” 

Mary smiled, and no matter how complicated things were, Dean was still helpless to his mother’s smile. “Hey, I’m a person too. And it was the 70s. Small town kids gotta make their own fun, you know?” 

Dean certainly knew. He grinned back at her, a little hesitant. “I mean… We could? If you really want to?” 

Sam had cleared his throat then, looking a little pained. “Guys,” he said, in his someone-has-to-be-a-reasonable-adult-here voice. “Don’t you think this is a bad idea?” 

“Oh, I don’t know,” Mary said seriously. “Seems to me like we deserve a day off.” 

“C’mon, Sammy,” Dean said, nudging his brother with his elbow. “When’s the last time you got stoned?” 

And that was how Dean ended up taking his mom to meet a guy named Cedric out behind a bar in Smith Center - and never mind how or why Dean had Cedric’s phone number. On the way back, Mary told Dean ruefully about how she’d mostly smoked to rebel against her parents, and how she’d only stopped because John hadn’t approved. 

Dean had laughed and told her about getting so paranoid one night that John would smell the weed on his breath that he’d drunk a bunch of bourbon to try and wash out the scent and ended up deliriously cross-faded. 

It wasn’t like weed had ever been part of the problem. Dean hadn’t been high in years, and he’d always leaned more on alcohol than anything else. He was nervous and kind of giddy at the prospect of doing this with Mary - this probably wasn’t what sons were supposed to do with their mothers, but hey, Mary was right. Dean was only just coming to accept that Mary was a person too, not just the great lost mother figure of his life. 

When they got back to the bunker, it was late afternoon and Dean dumped the bags from their grocery run onto the kitchen counter. 

“First rule of getting high,” Dean told Cas, who was hovering nervously. “Is that you gotta have snacks.” 

“Dean, are you sure this is a good idea?” Cas looked almost as nervous as the one time Dean had dragged him to a brothel, like he was staring down the face of iniquity. “I don’t even know if it’s possible for cannabis to have an effect on my senses, and even if it is, what if I do something foolish with my grace? Or what-” 

“Cas, buddy, you’re gonna be fine. I’ll be here, okay?” Dean had reached for Cas automatically, and then stopped, because Mary was still there, unpacking the groceries. “Trust me.” 

In the end, it took Cas two joints and almost an entire dime worth of butter to join them. Mary had put on some Fleetwood Mac, and Dean was just starting to feel it, laughing with Sam as Mary told them between hits about all the lies she used to tell to get out of hunting, and how she used to sneak out of the house to meet John and go dancing. 

Dean was high enough that he didn’t care, far enough gone that he just absolutely _needed_ the right kind of music, so he’d stolen Sam’s laptop and switched the Fleetwood Mac over to his secret private Spotify playlist of boppy bluegrass. 

Sam groaned as it started to play over the speakers. “Seriously? I thought you called this music ‘emo twang’.” 

Dean hadn’t meant anything by the choice of band, hadn’t thought Cas would remember, but Dean remembered the significance of Devil Makes Three again as Cas looked at him with wide, wide eyes, his pupils all shot to hell, mouth slightly open. It was definitely not just the drugs making Dean’s cheeks burn and he dragged his eyes away from Cas. It took a considerable amount of effort. 

“Shut up. Whatever. It’s good stoner music.” Dean wasn’t far gone enough to admit to Sam that he _loved_ this band, that he’d seen them play three times over the years. Not that Sammy had room to complain about his taste in music, but dad would have hated it. John couldn’t stand anything but classic rock and maybe a little soft rock for variety. He wouldn’t have gone for anything so perilously close to country music - anything with a twang in it was banned from the car when he was driving. 

In fact, DM3 was probably the first band Dean ever loved _in spite_ of John. 

_You got loaded again_

_Ain’t you handsome when you’re high?_

_Nothing matters_

_Chase that feeling ‘til you die…_

“I like it,” Mary said. “It’s happy-sad. I used to play a lot of Johnny Cash around the house.” 

And Dean had felt like the fucking sun was shining on his face.

Like a lot of Dean’s good memories, the night started to blur a little after that. He remembered sitting on the floor at one point, arm loosely over Cas’ shoulders while Cas tried to tell him “I can hear the universe, Dean.”

“Yeah, I’ll bet you can, buddy. No more for you, okay?” 

“No, no, you don’t understand. I can always hear it. You can hear it too - the sound of space breaking through your radio waves, the static, Dean, that’s the sound of the universe.” Cas had turned his big blue eyes up to Dean, always looking at him like that, like Dean was something valuable, something central to Cas’ being. “When there’s static on the television, that’s space, it’s all radiation and waves. I’m all radiation and waves. You know that, don’t you? I burn brighter than you can imagine.”

“Yeah?” Dean couldn’t seem to pull his arm away from Cas. “Sounds nice, Cas.” 

“It would burn your eyes out,” Cas said, almost defensively. 

“Okay. Well, don’t light up here then.” 

“I wouldn’t,” Cas had reached for Dean and then stopped, hand suspended awkwardly between them. “I wouldn’t,” he’d stage-whispered. “I’d burn myself up first.” 

“Okay, bud, let’s get you some water, huh?” Dean hauled himself up, head spinning just a little, and helped Cas get to his feet. “I might have made you take a little too much. You feeling okay?” 

“Mm,” Cas had said, leaning into Dean. They left Mary and Sam talking on the couch in the cave and Dean let Cas hold on to him all the way to the kitchen. Dean made him drink three glasses of water slowly, while Cas insisted he was fine, he was an angel and totally in control of his own mind. 

“Uh-huh, sure, Cas,” Dean said, smiling at Cas’ uninhibited rambling. He couldn’t seem to stop smiling, actually. 

“I _can_ taste color, you know,” Cas said stubbornly. “Water tastes like clarity. And you,” Cas had pushed himself up from where he’d been leaning against the counter and taken Dean’s shirt front in his hands. “You taste like jade and honey.” 

Cas kissed him, all hot breath and warm mouth, and it was soft, so soft, his lips fitted to the shape of Dean’s.

Dean let out a little breathless sound against him and crowded Cas back against the counter. He kissed him and kissed him and kissed him, for what might have been minutes or an hour, and time didn’t matter, nothing mattered, just the taste of Cas in his mouth and the feel of his skin under Dean’s fingertips. 

Cas broke away, fingers trailing up Dean’s chest over his shirt and he looked into Dean’s eyes so earnestly, like he might be about to cry. “You taste like sunset over the Potomac, like the winds in Cairo, like the green of Yosemite. You taste like the earth, Dean. Like redemption.” 

“Jesus, Cas,” Dean muttered. He’d have laughed it off if they were both sober, but it felt too big like this, and Dean was too opened to it. He wanted Cas to want him. 

Cas’ hands cupped his cheeks. “Dean?” 

“Yeah, Cas?”

“Am I high?” 

Dean had laughed so hard that Cas let go of him and looked a little affronted. It had taken several minutes for Dean to collect himself enough to say “Yeah, sunshine. You’re a little high.” 

When they’d gone back to the cave, the music was still playing and Mary was dancing. She pulled Dean and Cas in and made them dance with her, Sam collapsed on the couch laughing at all of them until Dean forcibly dragged his little brother up to join them. 

_All hail, all hail, to the greatest of sales_

_Everything in sight’s got to be sold_

_All hail, all hail, it’s to work or to jail_

_Man, they’re closing them doors on the world…_

Dean danced, laughing, until Sam spun him around hard enough that he got dizzy and fell back into the couch. Sam joined him a second later, all 6 ft 4 in of him crashing in the space next to Dean, collapsing into his shoulder. It was just Mary and Cas left standing, Mary taking his hands and trying to lead him through some sort of 60s era dance shuffle, Cas dutifully trying and predictably failing to follow her lead. 

_Laugh if you want to, really is kinda funny_

_‘Cause the world is a car and you’re the crash test dummy…_

Mary really was beautiful. It was a weird thing to think, maybe - or maybe not. Weren’t you supposed to think your mom was beautiful? Dean had missed her so much, all his life. His whole childhood had been subsumed by John’s grief for her, and for a long time Dean hadn’t been able to untangle what about that was John's grief and what actually belonged to Dean. 

This thing they had with Mary, not exactly a mother but still _mom_ , was complicated, but seeing her like this, seeing her happy, made Dean's heart swell with warmth. 

Mary gave up on Cas and let him go. Cas staggered back and then he too was curling up on the couch on Dean's other side, taking up two cushions to curl up like a cat. His head wasn't quite in Dean's lap, but rested right up against his thigh. Dean found his hand in Cas' hair with no idea how it had gotten there, but he didn't remove it. He didn't think Cas was asleep exactly, but his eyes were slitted and he was breathing deep and even. 

Dean looked up at Mary, dancing by herself now, lost in the happy-sad music. 

_We used to take pills and hope to die_

_Sing ourselves a suicidal lullaby_

_Nobody drivin' and I'm passenger-side_

_You made me the master of the long goodbye…_

"Mom?" Dean said. He wasn't going to take his hand out of Cas' hair. He was just going to tell her. This thing he'd been building with Cas, so painfully and slowly putting together, was real. It was real to him. What could she do, leave him again? 

Mary turned around, and her smile was so big it could have lit a city. "Look at you," she said, no longer dancing. "My beautiful boy all grown up." Her smile didn't waiver, but her eyes were full of tears. "And looking after _your_ boys." 

Sam was slumped on Dean's other side, fast asleep with his face smashed into Dean's shoulder. Sam was holding Dean's hand - which, when had that happened? - just like he used to when he was a little kid and couldn't fall asleep in a strange place. Dean felt like he should probably extract that hand, but he also desperately didn't want to. 

Sam and Cas, pressed into either side of him. His boys, each in their own way. His little family. Sometimes it was a weight, the way Sam and Cas both seemed to look to Dean like he was their salvation. But sometimes it was this - Dean being the rock they leant towards. 

"Mom, I need to tell you something," Dean said, embarrassed that his throat was scratchy. 

Mary came over to stand in front of him and she stroked his cheek just like she used to do when he was little. Dean closed his eyes, leaned into her touch the way he used to do then too. 

"You don't have to tell me anything, baby. I am... I am so proud of you. You have done so much and you deserve happiness, wherever you find it, hear me?" 

Dean felt his own tears brimming up and he nodded, unable to speak at all. 

Mary was crying now, still smiling, and her voice was choked. "My little angel. You took care of all my boys, didn't you? Took care of Sammy for me, took care of John. There's so much of me in you, and I'm so glad and so sorry. I wish I was there to take care of you, Dean. I meant to be there, always." 

Dean was crying too, saying "Thank you," and "I love you," and "I'm sorry. I'm sorry, mom," in a random order. Mary pulled his face gently into her stomach without disturbing his position between Sam and Cas, and she kept stroking his hair, both of them crying near silently. 

When Mary let go of him, they looked at each other, just smiling wetly while the music played on. 

_I am a stone falling through black water_

_On the bottom I start again_

_I am a stone falling through black water_

_My fall, it never ends…_

Dean wondered if this was how Cas felt all the time - like he was so full of light that he was sure to burst with it, chest so warm and glowing that it seemed to come right out of his fingertips. 

And that was Heaven. 

Dean closes his eyes and tries to think about nothing but the darkness, the quiet, the softness of his mattress. Not Heaven, not Hell. He has this horrible feeling in his stomach like something is coming - a feeling he has more often than not these days. There's so much shit to wade through here in this life. 

He wonders if Cas and younger Dean are still up talking. He wonders if his younger self is already in love with Cas, if what took post-Hell Dean four years to even begin to admit to himself could have been something uncomplicated and natural. 

But maybe he was still too damaged back then to know what was in front of him. Maybe. 

Dean feels the whiskey seeping in, the way he can't hold on to thoughts in his usual tightening spirals, the way everything kind of flatlines. He lets it go, lets it all smooth out. Just him and hunter's helper pulling him through.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter Content Warnings: internalized homophobia, sexual assault, torture, body horror, graphic depiction of violence, graphic depiction of hell, quasi-suicidal ideation, suicidal ideation in song lyrics, illicit recreational drug use, peer pressure for drug use, use of marijuana, alcoholism, self-hatred, self-esteem issues, flashbacks, trauma, vomit 
> 
> Devil Makes Three songs in the order they appear: Chase the Feeling, All Hail, Chains are Broken, Paint My Face


	11. Duality of cherry trees

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TREES
> 
> Content warnings in end notes.

Twenty-six year-old Dean watches his older self schlump off to bed, cold-shouldering Cas in the process. He watches Cas' eyes fall back to his book, unmoving, and Dean realizes that maybe Cas has more of a poker face than Dean has been giving him credit for. There's a little too much _nothing_ in Cas' expression. Dean feels a sudden surge of protective anger; he knows what rejection feels like, how these little daily dismissals of what Cas is offering have to settle like stones. 

Dean is getting a better sense of his future self, recognizing himself more and more as older Dean begrudgingly allows it, but this is _stupid._ The idiots are clearly in love with each other - no wonder Sam caught on to them. Just the way they look at one another is basically eye-fucking, and the sheer frikkin’ tension between them makes Dean want to slap his older self. It doesn't make sense to him that it's been years of this without any real resolve. Yeah, yeah, he's repressed about his sexuality, but Jesus Christ, he's not _that_ blind. A couple of days with Cas, and Dean is already half-willing to jump his bones just from the way Cas looks at him, gay or not. 

Dean's pretty pissed off with older Dean for the way he just… dismisses it. Like it means nothing. 

How does it not mean _everything_ to him? 

"Hey Cas," Dean says, flopping into the chair across from him and stretching out to his absolute maximum to prod Cas' leg with one sock-covered toe. "Odysseus or Achilles?" 

Cas looks up from the book he isn't reading and blinks. "Excuse me?" He says politely, as if dragging his thoughts back from a long way off. 

"Odysseus or Achilles? Which do you like better?" Dean retracts his foot and tucks it beneath him in the chair. " _The Odyssey_ or _The Iliad_?" 

At Cas' raised eyebrow, Dean adds, defensively "What? Okay so the Xerodicus play was dense, but I read." 

Cas gives him a tiny, fond smile. "I know you do. I suppose I am rather more attached to _The Odyssey_ as an epic, but to Achilles as a character. They are both deeply flawed men, but I suppose in some respect this is their appeal." 

Dean nods. "Sure, makes sense. I guess I have to agree with you there. _The Odyssey_ is kinda more satisfying, you know?" 

They look at each other for a moment, Cas with his little fond smile seemingly content to sit in this silence with Dean for eternity. Dean clears his throat. He can only take so much of that eye contact. 

"You wanna watch a movie or something?" he asks, not quite meeting Cas' eyes. 

Cas' head tilts a little. "It's late, Dean. Shouldn't you be heading to bed?" 

Dean shrugs. "I'm not really tired." 

Cas surveys him for another moment and then nods slowly. "I'm afraid I'm a rather poor viewing companion, but of course. I'd be glad to join you." 

"You're gonna ask questions the whole way through, aren't you?" Dean rolls his eyes. "Whatever. Do you know what's new?" 

Cas does not, predictably, have much more insight to the last fifteen years of cinema than Dean does, so Dean peruses through their DVDs and their subscription to the wholly magical Netflix. He settles on _Taken_ with Liam Neeson, and grumbles happily the entire time that this is "not how any of this works. Oh come on." 

Cas watches intently, like he's going to be quizzed later. Dean can't help glancing at him out of the corner of his eye. 

They're sitting on opposite ends of the couch, but Dean can't help wondering what it would like to reach over and hold Cas' hand. He thinks maybe he'd like to, thinks Cas might even like it if he did, but of course he doesn't. 

This is apparently the great love of Dean's life, and he's not allowed to fall for him. It's just another utterly unfair thing. 

_Nope_ , Dean thinks to himself as Liam Neeson bashes yet another bad guy into a wall. _No, you're not going to mope. You don't even know this guy._

The problem is that Cas knows him. Dean thinks Cas could probably take him apart faster than Dean can disassemble an engine. That's a kind of power no one outside of Sam and John has ever had over him before. Well, Bobby too, maybe. 

The movie ends and Dean turns off the TV over the credits. There's a few seconds of silence. 

"I'm not very nice to you, am I?" Dean blurts out. "I mean, future me. He's kind of a little shit, huh?" 

Cas shrugs. He doesn't look upset by the question, just contemplative. "I was never looking for niceness," he says. "You are kind, mostly. Capable of cruelty, I suppose, but we all are. Even when you struggle to show your kindness, your caring, you are an inherently loving person."

Dean frowns at him. "I hate to say it man, but that sounds like a lot of bullshit to me. You've been together for _years_ and the guy can't even admit it? I mean, I get it, kinda, it freaked me out too, just because… well, I don't… I haven't, like, really been with a dude before. But come on. Even I can tell things are different now." 

Cas gives him this tiny little smile that manages to be both sad and pleased. "I'm glad to think you might feel more comfortable thinking about your sexuality here, Dean. But what you and I have, it's complicated. By more than orientation. There is a lot of loss between us, and other things that Dean has never come to terms with, I think. He feels safer, this way, and I don't begrudge him that." 

Dean narrows his eyes at Cas' impassive face. The guy has something of a flat affect thing going on sometimes, but Dean's pretty sure that's not what this is. 

"Bullshit," he mutters again. He doesn't know why he's having this conversation. It's none of his business, this isn't his timeline anymore. But fuck it, of course it bothers him that his future self is such a dick, that older Dean has Cas and Sam and a home and whatever this weird thing is with their "kid" Jack, and he's still not happy. It doesn't seem like such a bad future to Dean, even if, okay, he knows that they've all been through some shit. 

"So, you rescued me from Hell, huh? Kinda left that out of our origin story earlier." 

"I thought you should hear it from Dean." Cas checks the little digital clock on the bottom of the television. It's past 1:00am. "You should get some sleep, Dean." 

"Yeah," Dean says, feeling grumpy for no reason he can really identify. "Yeah, okay." 

Cas just looks at him until Dean looks away. 

They spend the next few days talking an awful lot about trees. This seems to be an exciting development for Cas, who appears to have a near encyclopedic knowledge about arboriculture. Eileen, who sticks around for the morning after Charlie’s visit, is also interested in the topic of trees as a matter of religious importance. 

“You try explaining Sukkot or Tu B'Shevat to your classmates," she says. "Trees and Judaism is a whole thing." 

In fact, the problem is that sacred trees or blessed wooden artifacts turn up too much information. Sam, seemingly acting out of habit, delegates areas of research to Jack and the Deans. Cas gets to do whatever he wants, apparently, because he gets through more material than any of them, is the only one who can read Greek, and Sam trusts him to prioritize on his own through some unspoken nerd code. 

Dean thinks Sam's friendship with Cas is kinda cute, actually. Dean has always known how smart his kid brother is, and even when they were younger and annoying each other, Sam never actively tried to make Dean feel stupid. But Sam never really had anyone to talk to about, like, physics or whatever. Dean couldn't keep up with him on that kind of stuff. Dean did everything he could to encourage it when they were younger, always made sure Sammy had books and half a chance at succeeding at school. But a high school drop out who liked Vonnegut, guns, and tinkering on cars could only follow along so closely. 

So when Cas gets going about isotopic geology or whatever, and Sam joins him, Dean feels the sweet ache of affection for both of them. 

Nothing in particular happens for a few days, which feels like a small miracle in itself. Dean reads more about speculation on tree species in Ancient Greece than he ever cared to know, he actually manages to teach Jack how to cook scrambled eggs - which Sam says is a stunning feat of patience - and he gets more sleep than he can ever remember having. Older Dean forces himself to be at least polite around Dean, even if it’s through gritted teeth, and Sam does indeed sit through the rest of the Star Wars cinematic universe with him. Dean finds himself spending a lot of time with Cas - he wasn’t exactly consciously trying to do it, but Cas is always around and older Dean seems more inclined to go off alone with Sam, and Jack disappears for long hours at a stretch. And anyway, Dean likes Cas. It’s sometimes impossible to tell when Cas is being sardonic on purpose, or when he just hasn’t understood Dean’s sarcasm, and Dean finds this unexpectedly charming. 

Sam pushes Dean into taking Jack out to the local bar one night. His brother is obvious about it, but he doesn’t need to apply much pressure. There’s a little bit of tension there, between Dean and Jack, but Dean thinks he likes him. He’s certain that he likes Jack when he agrees to Sam’s meddling and they actually make it out to the bar. 

Jack eyes him warily when Dean orders them both Redbull and vodka, but hey, Sam said to show the kid a good time.

“Drink up,” Dean says, clinking his glass with Jack’s. Jack smiles a little, like he enjoys the sound, and he returns the cheers. 

A couple drinks in, and Jack is _sloppy._ He’s a damn delight, talking too fast, hanging on Dean’s words, laughing at Dean’s stupid jokes. Dean throws an arm around him at some point and drags him to the pool table where Dean precedes to teach him the game exactly the way he once taught Sammy. Jack is terrible, and then he gets the hang of it, squinting his eyes and muttering about math under his breath. It makes Dean laugh until Jack sinks three balls in one shot. 

“Damn kid,” Dean says, fully aware that Jack’s body looks at least as old as his. “You got potential.”

Jack beams at him. 

Dean takes a car out sometimes - just to be on the road, to get out of the bunker. He likes it there, but it feels too weird not to be on the road for so long, to be in one place every day. He finds he has a lot of nervous energy when he’s not actively hunting, so he takes out one of the old motorcycles to release some of that adrenaline. 

Flying down the Kansas roads on a BMW R 69 isn’t the same thrill as stabbing a monster, but it lets him feel less like his skin is crawling. 

Dean has been in 2020 for almost two weeks when he comes back from a drive one day and pauses in the hallway at the sound of hushed, angry voices. When he peers around the corner that leads down to the gun range, he finds older Dean standing with his arms crossed over his chest and Cas looking windswept and exasperated, standing as always just a little too close together. They’re whisper-yelling at each other. 

“You are _insufferable,_ ” Cas is saying. “I refuse to accept your need to martyr yourself at every damn opportunity -” 

Older Dean laughs, bitter and caustic. “Ain’t got a lot of room on that high horse to talk about martyrdom, Cas.” 

“I am _not_ on any horse,” Cas snaps, as if this is an insult that he doesn’t quite understand but assumes is very bad. “And we are talking about a situation that has every chance of resolving itself. You’re asking me for something you know I won’t give, so stop.” 

“I’m just saying, if it comes to it, prioritize the kid.” 

“No.” 

“Cas…” 

“No, I am not ‘prioritizing’ either of you. I refuse to let either of you die.” 

“Yeah, well, when has that ever worked for any of us?” older Dean uncrosses his arms and leans in a little. “Look, you know as well as I do that the kid is a better bet, okay? Not that he… not that I wasn’t already messed up at that age, but he’s not carrying around the last fifteen years of baggage. Hell, if he wasn’t actually manufactured to be here by Chuck, maybe we can use that, y’know? He hasn’t been tap dancing to Chuck’s storylines for near as long. He might not be as good in the field at first, but at least he’s not fucking broken.” 

“Dean,” Cas’ voice softens. He reaches for older Dean. “You’re not -” 

Older Dean slaps his hand away. “Don’t. Just… don’t.” 

They stand in a tense silence, staring at each other in a way that Dean, still peering unnoticed around the corner, recognizes. 

Older Dean lets out a long breath and abruptly turns away, vanishing back down the hall. Cas doesn’t go after him. He leans back against the wall and closes his eyes, but the hurt is plain on his face this time. 

“The problem,” Sam says over dinner that night. “Is that there are just so many trees associated with Apollo. There's the Cretan Palm, which his mother supposedly grasped during childbirth, all the way up to the famous myth about Daphne turning into a laurel tree, which is probably the strongest association. And then we don’t even really know if we’re looking for something that is sacred to Apollo or something else altogether.” 

“I might have something,” Cas says. He always joins them for dinner, but he usually doesn’t eat unless it’s to indulge Dean or older Dean’s cooking. “It’s not much, but I found another instance of the phrase in a passage about the Trojan war. It says how the Trojan horse was created using this ‘wood of the divine’. I don’t know if it’s the same thing, but it could be.” 

"I don't suppose we have any idea what the Trojan horse was made of, do we?" 

"A particular type of dogwood, supposedly," Cas says. 

Sam's expression brightens. "Cornelian cherry?" 

"I believe so, yes." 

"That's one of Apollo's trees. Or at least, there was a grove near Mount Ida that was supposedly sacred to him. Do you think…?" 

Cas nods. "It's worth acquiring. I think I could manage a trip to Turkey." 

"No," older Dean snaps from his seat across from Cas. "You're not burning yourself out like that again. We'll just have someone ship it to us like normal fucking people." 

Cas glares right back at him this time. "I wasn't asking, Dean." 

"Well I'm telling you. We've got time this time -" 

"To find a hunter contact in Turkey, make sure they find the right thing, then ship what is probably going to be a pretty heavy and quite possibly illicit package of wood?" Sam looks at older Dean skeptically. "I don't know, Dean. I think if Cas is feeling up for it..." 

Older Dean has that murderous protective look in his eyes again and Dean can practically feel his teeth grinding. 

"This is stupid," older Dean says. "We're not even talking about a weapon here, just something that _might_ be a shield." 

"Yeah, but if we can use that to buy us some time and maybe figure out how to trap Cerodicus back in the vase, then we might not need a weapon." Sam shrugs, giving older Dean a little apologetic glance. 

Older Dean glares at Cas for several solid seconds, and Dean thinks, distractedly, that they might as well just bang each other right there on the table for all the misplaced passion they're giving off. 

"I said I'll be fine," Cas finally says. "It's not a temporal shift, just a spatial one." 

Something spasms on older Dean's face, like maybe his anger is trying to give up into the worry it is so clearly masking, but he just shakes his head. He jerks his thumb at Dean. "If you're gonna go, take Bits with you." 

"Okay, don't call me that," Dean says. 

Cas' head tilts slightly to the side, his annoyance changing to confusion as he glances between them. Sam looks sharply at older Dean, but doesn't say anything. 

"And no offense or anything, but what use could I possibly be in Greece or Turkey or wherever?" 

Older Dean eyes him. "There's a lot of gods in Greece, or where the Ancient Greek city states used to be. Lot of old magic. One of us should go just for look out. Plus, if this dumbass actually has to talk to other humans, he's gonna need a people-skills translator. And anyway, this might be your only chance to leave the country without flying." 

Dean frowns at his future self. It feels suspiciously nice of him. 

"What?" older Dean says. "If you don't want to go…" 

Dean turns to Cas, not meaning to ask permission, exactly, but to confirm if this is something he's even capable of doing. 

Cas still looks confused, but he says "I could bring you with me. If you want to go. If not, I can handle people just fine." 

“No, I’ll… I’ll go with you,” Dean says. He feels, for reasons he’s not willing to look into, suddenly shy. 

Sam clears his throat. “Well,” he says. “I guess you can take one of Dean’s fake passports. Not that you’re likely to get stopped once Cas transports you in, but just in case. Maybe take a stake from a lightning struck tree. I think we’ve got one around here somewhere. They tend to work on Greek Go-” Sam stops. “Huh,” he says. “If they work on Greek Gods, do you think they might kill Xerodicus? Same mythology, right? And it’s another wood thing.” 

Cas shakes his head, rising from the table. “I doubt it. Xerodicus isn’t a deity, and we’re dealing with a curse as much as a person. Besides which, there is an evident demonic influence on the curse, which likely negates the transference of methodology from within the pantheon.” 

Nobody, not even Sam, has anything to say to this. 

Twenty minutes later, Dean has a jacket with a hefty stake resting in the inside pocket, a backpack with an axe and a couple other tools, and a passport that shows his face ten years from now. Cas doesn’t appear to have gathered anything. Older Dean hovers anxiously in the background while Jack sits with his computer at the kitchen table, ignoring them. Sam, however, with the air of someone asking for the impossible, says “Just don’t do anything stupid. Try to make it quick, okay? Take whatever time you need to recover, Cas, but I don’t like the idea of any of us being out in the open right now.” 

Cas nods, apparently fine with taking words of caution when it comes from Sam. Which, Dean thinks, actually seems pretty fair. 

Cas turns to Dean, and before Dean can ask what angelic transportation actually entails, he touches his fingertips to Dean’s forehead. 

“What -” Dean starts to say, but then he blinks and stops. They’re standing in the ghostly pre-dawn light at the base of a mountain, a chill in the air, the morning star twinkling silver as it rises high above them. 

Dean sucks in a breath. Everything is soft gray and blue in the very early morning here, but he can smell the crisp air of nature, see the groves of trees that climb up the mountain, hear the sound of a river somewhere far off. Even in the dim light, everything feels different. It feels decidedly unlike the U.S., and while Dean loves the open roads and heartland of his country, he can’t help the thrill he feels in standing somewhere completely removed from everything he’s ever known. 

Dean turns back to Cas, just in time to catch him as Cas tries to take a step and staggers. 

“Whoa there, angel,” Dean says, grabbing Cas by the shoulders. “You okay?”

Cas leans into him, one hand fisting into Dean’s shirt - which, that’s fine, that’s cool, that’s a totally normal reaction under the circumstances and Dean is not going to think about it for any length of time at all. 

“Yes,” Cas says, voice a little breathless, but also grumpy. “I just… need a moment.” 

“Yeah, okay, buddy. Take all the time you need.” 

So they stand there, Cas leaning heavily into Dean and breathing hard, Dean supporting his weight and aggressively not thinking about it. The sky gets a little brighter around the edges. 

When Cas finally straightens up, Dean sees the thin line of blood coming from his right nostril. 

"Oh, hey," Dean says, reaching automatically to wipe the blood away with the sleeve of his jacket. He stops himself just in time, flustered again and annoyed with himself for feeling like some jittery schoolboy on a first date. He digs in his pockets and finds some wadded up napkins that don't appear to be too gross. "Uh, here, you've got a nosebleed." He shoves the napkins at Cas. 

Cas takes them and cleans himself up. "Thank you." 

"Yeah. You sure you're alright?" 

Cas looks up the mountain. "I'm fine. Let's go." 

As dawn starts to break over the horizon in pink and pale yellow light, they can see the signs of deep deforestation for miles near the base of the mountain. There’s a bed of sawdust and litter around the fresh sites, low trenches of turned up mud and broken stumps in places where the work has been long-abandoned. Closer to the mountain itself, there are still clumps of trees and other growing things, but as Dean looks out at the surrounding area, he thinks that it looks like a blight upon the land. 

Cas lets out a deep sigh - it’s full of such immutable sadness that Dean is reminded once again that this is someone who has been alive for all of human history. 

“Sometimes I wonder,” Cas says, as they trudge on, heading gradually uphill. “If God intended for humans to be so self-destructive. Or if you did this all to yourselves.” 

Dean is silent for a minute, thinking about this. “Do you think He hates us? For all the shit we do, everything we ruin.” 

“I do not believe God either hates or loves at all,” Cas says. His voice is quiet and Dean can’t see his face as he walks ahead of him on the narrow dirt trail. 

“You don’t?”

“No. I don’t.” 

“Well,” Dean says. “What about you, then?” 

Cas turns his head back to look at him, the lines in his forehead wrinkled in confusion. “What about me?” 

“How come you don’t seem to hate humanity? Like you said, we’re destructive. I mean, you must have known what all this looked like before we got here.” Dean sweeps his hand at the decimated land behind them. “And we did all that, for what? Lumber? A couple years of oil?”

“Gold,” Cas says. “A Canadian gold mining company, I believe.” 

“Jesus.” Dean shakes his head. “What a stupid thing to ruin a planet for. Where’s Al Gore when you need him?”

Cas laughs. “I believe Sam would tell you that’s a very 2005 thing to say.” 

“I mean it, Cas. Why don’t you hate us? We ruin everything we touch.” 

Cas’ sigh is softer this time. He takes a moment to answer. “I suppose it’s because even then, you try so hard to fix everything too. Humanity can destroy - selfish, unnecessary, and irrevocable destruction. And yet, Dean, they rush into burning buildings to save their pets. They rescue wild animals from floods. People chain themselves to trees in front of bulldozers. You and Sam, you spend your life battling evil so that others can go home to their families at night. Humans were created to believe, you know. And for some of you, that belief manifests in faith to God or gods or some other religious principle. But when it comes down to it, down to the wire in this life, I think perhaps the strongest faith I have ever witnessed is the belief humans can have in each other. It’s…” Cas struggles with the words for a moment. “It’s foolish and beautiful all at once. Love, human love, is… unbearable. It burns too hot for Heaven, too deep for Hell. God bid us to love mankind, but no one ever told the angels what love means to a human soul. I think no one told us because once you know the desperate brightness, the blinding force of love, that is all there is. I love humanity because, destructive or not, it is worth saving.” 

Dean lets out a breath he didn't know he was holding. There's definitely _something_ stirring in his stomach. 

_Love is unbearable._ Christ.

"That's, uh…" Dean is usually so good at being charming, at keeping the conversation going. Maybe that's the problem, that whatever this is, it's the opposite of small talk. "I guess it's good to know at least we've got you on our side, then. Um. What are we looking for, anyway?" 

Cas lets him change the subject. “It’s a tree like that one.” Cas points to a surprisingly small tree with rounded yellow and red leaves, and here and there a few green survivors holding on into the fall. “But that’s not the one. I’ll know it when I see it.” 

They walk up and up, winding deeper into the foothills. It’s kind of… Honestly, it’s breathtaking. All that time traveling the country, driving back and forth, seeing all kinds of backroads and small towns, and Dean has never been to the Grand Canyon. He spent a day in Yosemite once, overwhelmed and small amid the splendor of the mountains and the sheer number of trees, and he’s wanted to go back ever since. He’s driven through the Badlands, through Yellowstone, but he hasn’t really gotten out and looked around as much as he would have liked. He’s always been busy. Dad always kept him busy, even when he wasn’t around to tell Dean no. 

Dean’s most reverent feelings come out in nature, though, and for once he lets the silence go between him and Cas. It’s another reminder of how well Cas knows him that he doesn’t seem to mind at all. 

Dean breathes in as much air as his lungs will take, holding the feeling, the taste of all this ancient glory bottled up inside him. It is, admittedly, getting harder to take deep breaths the more elevation they gain, but Dean loves hiking and he’s not going to complain. 

Cas abruptly stops, frowning, and cocks his head to the side again. It’s objectively cute when he does that. Dean’s allowed to think that much, he’s decided. 

Cas veers off the path they’ve been following and picks his way through the underbrush, still heading upwards, but east now. The rising sun is fully into the sky behind them at this point, shining through the leaves in dappling emerald. 

When Cas stops, Dean nearly walks right into him. He catches himself and does not go careening into Cas’ back as much as a certain traitorous part of his brain is insisting that it would like to. He has really, really, got to get a grip. 

Cas is just standing there, frowning down at the ground with what Dean can only decipher as mourning in his face. 

“Uh, Cas?” 

Cas points, and Dean sees a large stump in the middle of the forest debris. It looks like it was cut down some time ago, and glancing around, Dean can tell that when it was standing it would easily have been the largest tree in the grove. 

“This was the grove’s matriarch,” Cas says sadly, kneeling down to brush a layer of dirt and dead leaves off the stump. “It was a mother tree. Their oldest.” 

“Uh,” Dean says. He knows fuck-all about trees and shit, outside of what he’s learned in the last few days and a couple of myths that came up now and again in local lore cases. “I’m sorry?” 

Cas nods. His fingers gently trace across the dirty old stump, and okay, he’s such a weirdo, but there’s a genuine grief in his face that Dean just can’t make fun of. 

Cas closes his eyes and presses his palm to the stump, his fingertips starting to glow. 

“Cas, I don’t want to tell you what to do, but you’re not about to resurrect a full fucking tree here, are you?” 

“She’s still alive,” Cas says. Dean notes that he’s switched to a personal pronoun. His face is scrunched up, ear tilted towards the ground like he’s listening to something. “The other trees are still feeding her, keeping her from dying when she can’t get nutrients herself. They do that, sometimes, especially in a grove as old as this one. They sometimes keep their oldest ancestors alive long after they've been cut down.” 

“Uh,” Dean says again, because he’s a lover of nature and all, but he’s never exactly been a hippie tree hugger. “Are you telling me trees have, like, feelings? Like, is this compassion?” 

Cas holds up a hand, closing his eyes now, definitely listening to something. Dean can’t hear anything, but he’s got the uncomfortable feeling that Cas is talking - or at least listening - to the tree. 

“This tree was a mountain ash,” Cas murmurs, eyes still closed. “The mountain ashes and the common hazels have a longstanding alliance with the cornelian cherry on this side of the mountain, although…” Cas’ lips quirk. “I believe farther down on the northwest foothills the ash and the hazel do _not_ talk to each other. Apparently, the hazel trees are taking a little too much light on that side of the mountain.” 

“What?” Dean says, because, really, what else is there to say to that? 

“But the old grove of cherry is still growing,” Cas goes on, as if Dean hasn’t spoken. “It’s… Hm. _Up-dry_ , apparently. That’s a little… Ah, yes. Uphill from the river.” 

Cas removes his hand and stands up, but Dean is pretty sure he catches Cas' mouth whispering "thank you" to the stump. 

"Dude," Dean says as Cas dusts his hands off on his pants. "What the hell was that?" 

Cas gestures for them to start walking again, so they do, Dean trailing a little behind and careful to step in the places Cas has already disturbed. 

"Old woods communicate via mycorrhizal networks," Cas says as they walk. "A symbiotic relationship between the tree roots and a type of fungi. It allows them to send information and nutrients to each other, for a tax of their resources to the fungi, of course." 

"Of course," Dean mutters. 

"Most forests will have some type of this communication set up, provided deforestation has not damaged the networks too badly." Cas sighs, all the weight of millenia on his breath. "It's part of the reason why all of this is so detrimental, and why you cannot simply plant new trees to pave over the damage done to old ones. I mean, Dean, trees are such complex beings, you have no idea, none of you do. The networks here are ancient, strong. The groves have deep alliances with each other that they've kept for centuries, some longer than that. They share resources and send distress signals. The mountain ash, the common hazel, and the cornelian cherry all operate on the same network here to the east, and the firs and the pine operate on another. They are collaborative." 

"Are you telling me trees are sentient?" Dean asks. He doesn't really know what to make of this - it all sounds a little woo-woo to him, but then again he's an actual godforsaken timetraveling clone, so maybe trees having feelings wouldn't be the weirdest thing he's learned this month. 

Cas sighs again. He turns to look at Dean and those eyes of his catch the light of the morning sun behind Dean's head. They seem to pull light in, getting deeper the longer Dean looks into them, blue like the sky, like the platonic ideal of blue, like light pulled into being. Dean wonders if it's an angel thing, or if it's just Cas. 

"It's complicated, Dean. Sentient as in experiencing emotions? Sentient as in able to comprehend God?" Cas shrugs. "I can't answer that. I only know that they are conscious and complex. Human science has tried for so long to study trees as individuals, or on human time, but that simply isn't how they operate. We're talking about individual trees that work together as a wholly different kind of organism, that form symbiotic relationships with the natural world around them to the extent that they play a part in other organisms' evolutionary tracts. We're talking about hundreds or thousands of years, living on a scale outside of what scientists have been able to study. So, sentient? Perhaps not. Perhaps it's all chemicals. But then, so are you." 

And with that, Cas turns right around and keeps walking. 

Dean follows him, quiet, thinking this through and feeling his own little human feelings about it. It's a romantic notion, sure, to think about nature like that. And honestly, Dean's always been pretty shit at science that wasn't homemade hacked engineering, so what does he know? It feels natural to anthropomorphize the trees. 

"Uh, Cas?" Dean calls after maybe twenty minutes of easy, contemplative silence. "Aren't we planning to cut down a tree?" 

"I hope not," Cas says. "We'll see." 

After another twenty minutes and a couple of turns that lead them up and away from the sound of the rushing river somewhere out of sight, they walk into a new copse of trees and Dean can just _feel_ it. 

His hand twitches to his jacket pocket automatically, checking that the god-killing stake is still an easy reach. 

It isn't an outright feeling of danger, exactly, more the understanding that something very old and important is in the air. Something powerful. 

The cherry trees here are still relatively small, nothing like the towering redwoods in Yosemite that had made Dean breathless and bound to their beauty. And yet… 

"Oh," Dean says. It comes out smaller than he means it to. He has never prayed in his life, but if he were going to, he'd want to do it here. 

"Yes," Cas says. "This was a sacred place. A place of worship." 

"To Apollo, right?" Dean runs his fingertips along the bark of one of the trees, because he's always touching things he shouldn't, no wonder he's fucking cursed, but all that happens is that reverent feeling in his chest. 

"Apollo, yes, but… sometimes sanctity is not dependent on a deity, per se. Apollo looked after this grove, it was sacred to him, but I think for the people who have lived here long ago it was simply holy in its own right. A thing so beautiful and loved that its meaning and worth is cyclical and self-perpetuating." 

"Cas, I don't… I don't want to cut these trees." The words are out before Dean really thinks them through, but dammit if they aren't the truth. Maybe he is a frikkin' tree hugger after all. 

Cas smiles at him, that smile that tells Dean that he is _good_ and _beautiful_ and _loved_ , that he is maybe even holy in Cas' eyes, and Dean wants to run away from it as much as he wants to lean into it. He thinks Cas might touch him with as much reverence as he has for these fucking trees, if Dean let him. 

There's probably a joke in there about popping cherries, and Dean is just putting his mind to the task of pulling it together, when Cas steps right into Dean's personal space and Dean's breathing seems to go completely erratic without his control. 

"I know," Cas says. "I'd rather not do any permanent damage here if we can help it." His gaze is intense, always so intense on Dean like this. "But I will, if it's necessary." 

Dean is pretty sure Cas would burn the whole forest down to save him - at the very least, to save his future self. He's pretty sure, actually, that Cas would burn the whole world before he let older Dean die. Again. 

And that… 

Christ. That's so far over Dean's head that he wants to let it drown him. 

Dean averts his eyes, looking at the grove instead. It's pretty, beautiful, full of quiet, ancient memorial. 

They're standing in an open space that isn't large enough to be called a meadow, but the grass underfoot is lush and green. The crowns of many of the trees weave together, but they don't grow crowded against one another. There are little saplings here and there, other trees around Dean's height, still others that wave in the breeze above his head. There are no statues, no plaques, no litter. It's like this place has been forgotten. 

“I think, in order to get enough wood to make a shield, we would need one of the trunks,” Cas says a little sadly, gazing around them now too. 

Dean squints at the largest of the trees. It’s hard to imagine building a Trojan horse out of them. 

“We’re thinking this is something to use as a temporary measure, yeah?” Dean approaches a sturdy tree and wraps his hand around one of the branches, feeling it out. That same awed tingling flickers under his skin. “Just something to keep Cerodicus’ arrows at bay or whatever.” 

“That’s the idea.” 

“Okay, cool.” Dean grins. “Hey Cas, you ever play baseball?” 

Cas insists on doing a little ritual before they break off any limbs. He sits down in front of the tree and puts his hands on it, eyes closed. Dean watches him. Cas is… The word Dean wants to use is _special_ , but it feels both too obvious - he’s an angel after all - and carries other weird connotations that may or may not apply but are not what Dean is trying to name. Dean likes that Cas is weird about plants, that he’s taking such pains to care for living things. Cas is nice, and whatever he said about not looking for niceness himself, it’s a novelty for Dean. He’s used to rough and tumble hunters, to their dad, even to his Sammy who was a nice kid but sure grew up to have a temper. Dean is tough, tough as nails, but… Sometimes he wonders who he would have been if he didn’t have to be that way. 

He thinks, vaguely, that there was a time when he was still soft, when he was trying to be like he remembered mom being, trying to be that and more for Sam. And maybe that softness was why dad… Well. Why dad seemed like he was trying to fix Dean. 

Dean had to be nurturing on one hand, ruthless on the other. That duality is still somewhere in him, all overbearing protectiveness and desperation for the kindness that he’s just being given here in this timeline. All hypermasculinity and this secret need for validation. 

Cas doesn’t seem to care at all about how his own behavior comes across, doesn’t seem remotely bothered by what Dean or anyone else might think of him for sitting down and gently explaining to the tree that he’s going to take two of its branches, but not to send distress signals out to start healing because he will heal over the wound himself. 

If Cas can be this gentle, and also rebel against Heaven, also be a warrior who dragged older Dean from the pits of Hell, who has apparently fought and died at his side, then maybe all this time that Dean spends fighting that duality in himself is just… 

When Cas stands and breaks off two branches, each about the width of a club, there is a loud _crack!_ of splintering wood. Nothing else happens. Dean was holding his breath, hand inside his jacket pocket, half-expecting Apollo himself to show up, but there’s nothing. Cas just pressed his hands to the two spots where he ripped off the branches - ripped them like it was nothing - and skin glows faintly for a moment. When he steps away, the tree has healed over, just a little dent in the rough bark where the limbs used to be. 

Cas wavers on his feet, but he doesn’t fall over. He hands the branches to Dean, who shoves them through the loops on the outside of his backpack. 

“Let’s walk a little ways back down,” Cas says. “I don’t want to use any more of my grace than I have to here, and I could use a minute before we go back to the bunker.” 

“Yeah, sure, Cas.” Dean is a little disappointed that it doesn’t look like there’s going to be a fight. He keeps an eye out as they walk anyway, looking out for anything following them, because it just feels too easy. 

“You get up to a lot of heists? Stealing from gods and shit?” Dean asks when they’ve walked for awhile and absolutely nothing else has happened. 

Cas turns back to him, smiling. “More than I ever would have predicted before I fell.” 

“Do you really have wings, dude? And you didn’t lose them when you left Heaven?” 

They’ve reached the original path they followed up through the foothills and paused. 

“I do, although they are not technically what you would conceive of as wings. Like I said, they are waves of light, like the rest of my true form.” 

Dean eyes him. “Yeah? What does your form look like, anyway? Do you have tentacles? I bet you have tentacles.” 

Cas laughs, that little surprised laugh of his, smile showing his teeth, and Dean just… 

Dean kisses him before he’s really thought the idea through. It’s probably a bad idea, and Dean is still not entirely sure how he feels about guys, but he’s pretty sure he knows how he feels about Cas, and he just cannot stand the way Cas looks at him for one more second without knowing for sure what this feels like. 

Dean grabs Cas’ face with one hand and pushes him back up against the trunk of the nearest tree with the other, crowding close the way their bodies always seem to be threatening to do. 

Cas kisses him back. Dean wasn’t sure if he would - and maybe that’s bad, maybe he should have asked first, but here he is, reaching for things that he shouldn’t. Cas goes soft against him, lets Dean manhandle him up against the trunk, presses back against the kiss with a gentleness that is unbearable. 

Cas puts one hand on Dean’s jaw, cupping his face, the other on the small of Dean’s back, pulling him close, so Dean loops his arms around Cas’ neck and pushes both hands up into his windswept hair. Cas’ hand on his cheek is warm, his calluses rough

Kissing Cas is like… 

It's like… 

It isn't _like_ anything. 

Or it's like the time Dean was fourteen with a fake license and just enough scraped together cash and he took Sammy to a theme park and they rode the roller coasters until they were dizzy and high off the adrenaline, laughing and leaning on each other in the warm summer air. 

Or it's like the first time Dean saw the sunset over the west coast, the purple-red-pink-orange splashed out across the horizon and reflected on the water. Dean had been seventeen and he would never have admitted it but it had been so singularly beautiful that he'd shed a tear. 

Or it's like driving in the Impala, Sam asleep in the passenger seat, classic rock in the tape deck, nothing but the empty road stretched out before Dean, his heart full and beating in his chest as he speeds down the highway, letting him know he's alive. 

Or it's like the first moment of waking up next to someone, not totally awake, the sleepy warmth shared between bodies, just aware enough to shift closer to them, a moment of intimacy before consciousness intrudes. 

Kissing Cas is like every good moment Dean's ever kept in his soul. It's warm and intense and so fucking good and he wants to do it forever. 

But Dean’s not allowed to want things. Never has been. There was no point. He wasn’t going to get a home, or a father who stayed, or a mom who wasn’t dead. There was no point in wanting safety, security, stable love. That’s not his life. Those are things for other people, things he tries to protect, things he always tried to give Sammy, but what Dean has wanted hasn’t mattered since he was four years old. It’s futile. It’s weak. 

Dean breaks off with a little involuntary sound that he’s never going to admit to making. Cas is breathless beneath him, head still tilted up to him, eyes wide and staring at Dean with a kind of understanding that makes Dean want to hide. 

“Oh,” Dean says shakily. “Okay then.” 

He can’t seem to move, his body flush against Cas, hands all tangled up in his hair. Cas doesn’t take his hands off Dean either and their faces are so close together that their noses are almost brushing. 

They stare at each other. 

For once, it’s Cas who breaks first. He closes his eyes and there is a look of evident pain on his face that makes Dean’s stomach drop - and then just keep on dropping. 

“Dean,” Cas says. “I can’t.” 

Cas’ hand drops from his jaw, but only gets as far as Dean’s shoulder, seemingly unable to let go. His thumb rubs circles through Dean’s jacket. 

“Yeah,” Dean says, unwilling to move either. His heart is beating too fast. His feelings are coming too fast too, one on top of the other. He feels lightheaded and a little sick and a lot like he’d like to put his tongue back in Cas’ mouth. 

Dean is maybe kinda gayer than he thought, and he’d probably be freaking out about that more, but… He already knows that this happens. Like, what’s the point in denying it or panicking about it when there are years of proof already between him and Cas? No one else seems to care, _Sam_ doesn’t care, and dad’s dead, so what does it matter? 

This is something that just _is._ Dean is going to fall in love with Cas. Dean is going to want him. Maybe even to need him. It’s love crossing time - it is, it was, it will be. It’s more profound than Dean knows how to deal with, more powerful than he can deny right now. 

“Yeah,” Dean says again. “Because of older me, right?” 

Cas’ eyes are still closed and he looks a little miserable. He nods. Dean wants to kiss the sadness out of him. 

“He doesn’t treat you right,” Dean says, and he’s surprised by the words and their ferocity. He hadn’t really meant to say it, hadn’t known how angry it would sound. He doesn’t add anything stupid, like _I’d treat you right_ , because he is a high school drop out with five bucks to his name and nothing in particular to offer anyone except the open road. 

Cas sighs. His fingers rub the small of Dean’s back too. “He treats me better than I deserve,” he says quietly. “You don’t know the things I’ve done, Dean. The ways I’ve hurt you and Sam. If you did…” 

“I don’t care,” Dean says, and he doesn’t. “You telling me that I - that he hasn’t fucked up too? That he hasn’t hurt you? What, is he just treating you like shit to punish you for the past? That’s messed up, Cas. That’s not how friendship or forgiveness or love works.” 

Cas finally opens his eyes. His expression is soft. “Dean isn’t trying to punish me,” he says. “He forgives too easily, if anything. I only meant that I don’t resent him for any of it. What we have is… complicated, but it’s more than I ever believed Dean could give me. He forgives me, and I forgive him. The rest of it… It’s enough.” 

Dean shakes his head. He kinda wants to cry and he doesn’t even know why. He lets his hands fall from Cas’ hair, but keeps them around his neck. 

“Bullshit, Cas. I ain’t… I’m not trying to pull you away from him by saying this, alright? But you don’t deserve the shit he puts you through. I hate that that’s what I become.” 

“Dean.” Cas lets go of him, only to take his face in both hands. “Don’t. He’s you - a you who has been through so much and who has had to make impossible choices again and again. Both of you are good men. You are both so worthy of love. You always will be. Your soul is so bright with love. So unbearably bright.” 

Unbearable. _Love is unbearable… It’s all there is._

Dean does his best not to sniffle. “Dammit, Cas,” he says. He can’t get anything else out without his voice breaking. 

Cas pulls Dean’s head down and kisses him on the forehead, his lips lingering hot against his skin. 

“I do not want to hurt either of you,” he murmurs. “Please believe me, Dean, that the way I feel about you is as real as any love I have ever known. I would give you anything, but despite my feelings, despite the fact that you are yourself, I think it would hurt your future self immensely if those feelings were made physical. And I… I can’t. I have hurt him so many times already.” 

“Right,” Dean says. He finally steps back, breaks their points of contact. He has to look away from Cas, look up at the sky and keep from crying - not because this is rejection, or because the things he wants are futile once again, but because Cas basically told him he loved him. Not older Dean, but Dean himself. Just like that. Like it’s nothing. Or like it’s something obvious. Like it’s something Dean just deserves, without having done a thing to earn it.

“No, it’s okay. We’re good. We’re… we’re good, right?” 

“Of course, Dean.” 

Dean lets out a breath and tugs on the hem of his jacket. There’s a lot of heat in his face, in his stomach, in his mouth where the ghost of Cas’ kiss still lingers. 

“I won’t tell older Dean,” he says to the dirt. 

“I… Thank you. I think I will, if you don’t mind.” 

Dean looks up, surprised, and Cas’ mouth is actually quirked in a small wry smile. 

“We’ve had too many years of secrets. They always end up coming out somehow.” 

Dean shrugs. “It’s your relationship or whatever. Think he’ll punch me for kissing his man?” He goes for a rakish grin. Cas can probably see right through it, but it feels better for Dean to hide under something than all this naked truth. 

“I very much doubt it,” Cas says, all seriousness. “I know he doesn’t act like it, but as complicated as his feelings are about having you here, he is coming to care for you.”

Dean snorts. “Okay. Sure, Cas.” 

Cas shakes his head, but he doesn’t try to argue the point further. There is a moment of silence, just them and the trees. The quiet reverence reverberates in Dean’s soul, and he’s not sorry about the kiss. He’s not sorry about any of it. 

“Shall we go home, Dean?” Cas asks. 

It could break his heart, that word in Cas’ voice, but Dean won’t let it. 

“Yeah. Yeah, let’s go home.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter Content Warnings: internalized homophobia, emotional abuse, dismissal of emotional abuse/internalized victim blaming, brief reference to implied past childhood physical abuse, reference to past childhood emotional abuse/neglect, self-esteem issues, self-hatred
> 
> Did I lean into the anthropomorphizing metaphors about trees? Yes. But hit me up in a hundred years when we actually have any long term studies. In the meantime, if you would like to spend the rest of your life crying everytime you look at a tree, this article is great: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/the-whispering-trees-180968084/


	12. Bodily topography

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Look, I just think we all deserve for someone to pin Dean down and make him listen to words of love.  
> 
> 
> Content warnings in end notes

The second that younger Dean and Cas disappear, Sam jerks his head toward the stairs. Present day Dean rolls his eyes but follows him down to the hallway, out of earshot of Jack. 

"What are you doing?" Sam asks without preamble. 

Dean raises an eyebrow, his face closing off in that way that Sam hates. It's the fucking trauma, he knows, the way Dean's face just shuts down like that sometimes. It's his defense mechanism, cutting things off, pushing them down. That facade of closed off anger is the easiest thing for Dean to reach, even when the threat is just his brother's words. Sam knows, because it's how he feels too sometimes. 

They don't talk about it. 

Dean doesn’t give anything up. "What do you mean?" 

Sam waves his hand vaguely at the ceiling. "You. Practically pushing other Dean on Cas like that. What are you up to?" 

Dean scowls at him. "Nothing. I don't know what you're talking about." 

"Oh yes you do." Sam glares right back, but there's no heat in it. "Dean, I know this whole thing has got you all twisted up, but don't go fucking things up with-" 

" _Sam._ I am not doing anything, okay? I just… I've traveled enough, but I hadn't back then. I would have wanted to, without the flying. You told me to be nice, so I'm fucking trying. And now, what, you think I'm being too nice? Pick a goddamn side here." 

Sam narrows his eyes at Dean because he knows his brother, and this is not the way he acts when he is just trying to be nice. This is Dean _conniving_ , again, and things never turn out well for them when he does this shit. 

Sam has thought very seriously about just straight up walking in on Dean and Cas one night, just to get it out there and over with. He would, too, if he wouldn't need Cas to burn his eyes out afterward. Or if Sam thought even that would get Dean to admit to himself that what he has with Cas is important - the most important relationship he's ever had outside of Sam, their dad, and Bobby. Maybe _more_ important. 

But Sam hasn't gone barging in on their sexscapades, because it should be Dean's choice even if he is an idiot, and because Sam worries that all it would do is make Dean ashamed and defensive and insist that it doesn't mean anything. 

"Don't do something stupid," Sam says flatly. 

Dean rolls his eyes. "You keep saying that." 

"Yeah, because you seem like you need the reminder." Sam tries to hold his brother's gaze, but Dean looks away, eyes still shuttered. 

Sam has the insane urge to tell Dean he loves him - that or hug him, or punch him. Something in that range of emotion. He doesn't though, because they don't say or do those things except in extremes, and even though Sam has a sinking suspicion that Dean might be about to go down another road of self-sabotage, Sam is not going to entertain the idea that Dean might actually die next week. That's not happening. They're just not doing that. 

And because no one is dying, Sam can't tell his brother that he loves him.

But sure, they're fine. 

It's just before midnight when Cas and younger Dean reappear in the bunker living room. Present day Dean is drinking a beer at the table and not even pretending to read the book Sam shoved at him earlier, Jack is copying Dean on the beer but _is_ at least looking at more art museum catalogues on his laptop, and Sam is wading through the PDFs he pulled days ago. They all look up at the familiar rustle, so they all see Cas go down. 

Sam is halfway out of his chair as Cas' knees give way and he crumples into his trenchcoat. Younger Dean catches him, but Cas is quite a bit sturdier than Dean was at twenty-six, and he nearly topples over under the weight. 

Present day Dean, because he is the _worst,_ literally leaps over the table to get to them rather than take the extra ten seconds to walk around it. He does reach them first though, and when Cas proves too weak-limbed to heave up, he helps younger Dean lower Cas gently to the ground instead. Older Dean strips off his jacket and crumples it up to pillow beneath Cas' head. 

"Hey, bud," older Dean says, one hand gently touching Cas' face. "Hey, you with us, Cas?" 

Younger Dean kneels on the other side of Cas, looking stricken. "He was fine before we… teleported or whatever." 

Sam and Jack make it around the table, hovering just out of reach. The two Deans on either side of Cas' limp form makes a tragic tableau that hits Sam hard. He hadn't thought that much about how this must be for Cas, too worried about Dean - about both Deans, really. This scene that the three of them strike on the bunker floor feels too much like a familiar grief. 

The feeling is temporary though. Cas makes a low, grunting sort of sound and puts a hand up to his forehead. 

"Hey," present day Dean says again, his voice full of a heartbreaking relief. "I told you this was stupid." 

"Mmph," Cas grumbles from the floor. "I am older than the human conceptualization of intelligence. Have you considered that my choices may be more calculated than yours?" 

"No," Dean says without a beat. "You may be as old as dirt, Cas, but you've only been making choices for ten years. That one's not gonna fly." 

"Says the man who _chose_ to eat the burrito out of the motel trash can." 

"Hey, that was supposed to be a _secret_ trash burrito, you dick." 

Younger Dean looks up at Sam, concern bleeding away into a wry quirk of his lips. "Are they always like this?" 

Sam suppresses his own grin. He won't admit it, but he's fond of the bickering between older Dean and Cas - it's how he knows they're still doing okay. Their fights, the real ones, are bad, but so is the icy politeness that comes after. This warm, weird, affectionate insulting is them on a good day. "Yeah, pretty much." 

Cas sits up, older Dean’s hand hovering surreptitiously at his back. Cas looks as tired as Sam has ever seen him. 

“Are you alright, Castiel?” Jack asks, his own brow furrowed. Cas gives him a little smile and clambers to his feet. Both Deans go with him, although younger Dean has let go of the arm he was clutching. 

“I’m fine, Jack. Just… A bit stretched thin.” 

“Did you run into any trouble?” Sam asks. 

“No, nothing. No wards, no gods.” 

“Just trees,” younger Dean says cheerfully, slinging his backpack off. Sam notices the two thick branches wide enough to make a cudgel but certainly not broad enough for a shield. 

“That’s it?” Sam asks, peering at them doubtfully as younger Dean pulls them free. 

“Yeah,” younger Dean says. He tosses one to present day Dean. “Here, old man. You think you could swing that at an arrow?” 

Older Dean catches the branch, eyebrows raised, but he smiles as he gives it an experimental heft. “Huh,” he says. “Nice. Your idea?” 

Younger Dean grins. “Cas was talking to the trees. Seemed rude to cut down one of his friends.” 

Everyone looks at Cas, who has a slightly pained expression. “I was mostly listening,” he says. “I would not say we bonded on a more familiar level.” 

Sam decides this is one of those things they do not have time for. "Okay… so your plan is to, what, play rustic baseball with a cursed arrow?" 

"Yeah, I dunno, something like that." Younger Dean scratches the back of his neck. "We're just hoping this 'wood of the divine' or whatever can defend against the arrow itself, right? Probably no hope of just stabbing the guy with a spear or something?" 

"I don't think so." Sam sighs. He would have preferred a shield - or a full body of armor, or a nice wood-panelled room he could lock his brothers in for a while to keep them safe.

Sam catches himself on that stray thought: _brothers._ It came automatically, and looking at them both hovering to either side of Cas, each holding a branch of a cherry tree that may or may not save their lives, another swell of protective emotion goes crashing through him. 

Sam can't tell Dean he loves him, but he does. Of course he does. And here he is in duplicate - the Dean who Sam has always and will always love, and the Dean who first reunited them as adults. This person who was always everything to Sam. Brother, partner, father. Mom, too, but Dean would probably knock his teeth out if Sam ever said that out loud. 

Sam never got to be an older brother - Adam doesn't really count - but he feels this strange near inverse of feelings for younger Dean. It's a role reversal neither of them is totally comfortable with, but it's deep and real too. It's strange to think of twenty-six year-old Dean as a separate person from Sam's Dean, because they are a part of each other, but somehow they are so wholly individual. 

Older Dean goes downstairs with Cas to enforce a rest against Cas’ insistence that he’s fine, and younger Dean heads to bed only a few minutes after. Jack stays on his computer, half-angel insomniac that he is, and Sam keeps him company at the table for a while. 

Sam’s mind gets too full of, well, everything to sleep, sometimes. He has a Greek chorus of myths running through his head - the story of the goddess Psykhe who was the deification of the soul, the story of Zeus splitting eight-limbed proto-humans in two and creating soulmates, the story of Patrocolus’ soul unable to rest until his remains had been laid with Achilles’.

Sam is thinking, too, of Plato, Socrates, and the other Greek philosophers. He worries that the cherry tree clubs will not be enough, that he will not be able to figure this thing out in time, that he will have to watch his brother die again. Again, again, again. 

Does it ever end? 

Sam rubs a hand over his face. He tells himself, _after the next one,_ has been making that empty promise to himself for years. But after this curse, there will be Chuck. Another end-of-the-world Hail Mary shitshow that they have no guarentee of surviving. They’ve been keeping that from young Dean, at first in unspoken trepidation of telling him too much to either overwhelm him or upset the timeline, and now in a briefly whispered agreement to deal with that _after._

It’s too much for anyone.

It does not escape Sam’s notice that this is the very reversal of Dean protecting Sam by keeping him in the dark about what their dad was really doing during their childhood. Of course, Sam doesn’t like any parallels that place John next to Chuck, but it can’t be helped. 

They want to keep young Dean safe - and maybe more than that, they want someone around who still believes that they are free. 

*** 

Cas watched quite a lot of porn in the weeks after he first had sexual intercourse with Dean. He still thought it likely that their night together had been a one time thing, something Cas would keep as a priceless gift tucked away into the fabric of his being, but, just in case, he'd wanted to be prepared. Mostly, what Cas learned was that he did not particularly enjoy pornography. There was a certain bodily reaction to it, yes, but as he studied the faces through the screen, he found the whole thing less and less arousing. Now that he'd had sex - sex with _Dean_ \- none of the noises or expressions felt real. It was all just acting, which was fine, but there was no story there, nothing for Cas to connect with. So Cas studied it dutifully and made mental notes and thoroughly denigrated his search history, but it wasn't about finding pleasure. 

He read too, mostly articles from gay magazines or online blogs, trying to figure out techniques from description alone, not hoping to get to put it into practice, but, just in case. 

And then… 

And then. 

The problem was that, as always, nothing Dean Winchester ever did followed the script it was supposed to. Cas was happy to tear it up and toss it out with him, happy to give Dean whatever he wanted as long as what he wanted was to touch and be touched by Cas. Position is almost entirely irrelevant to Cas, when what makes that odd human feeling flutter in his insides is the near-electric contact of their bodies. And Cas knows, because the words of the gay blogs still rattle around in his head from time to time, that this idea of top and bottom is a false dichotomy, as all dichotomies are, but, well. He also knows what Dean likes. Which is many things, but what Dean, really, really likes is to be pinned down and roughed up a little. 

It wasn’t something Cas would have picked out of the seemingly endless menu of sexual pursuits catalogued on the internet, but he likes it because Dean likes it. He likes giving Dean the freedom to lose control a little, to let go, even if just for a moment. Cas suspects that’s what it is - that Dean’s low-key and somewhat abashed interest in aspects of submission has at least a partial root in his usual need to be in control. Something there, too, in his slight shame of _wanting_ at all. Cas used to think that this shame was about wanting things with another man, and that’s a part of it, but he suspects that Dean’s relationship to his own desires is warped beyond sexual orientation or intimacy. 

It’s why he does odd things sometimes, things that it’s taken Cas a decade to recognize as part of a complex and often cruel defense mechanism. Even in the off moments when Dean could theoretically enjoy his time with Cas or Sam or Jack, when they drive without purpose in the Impala, when Dean’s singing along to his favorite tapes, headed towards a show or a field for stargazing or just a good beer, Cas has watched him shut down sometimes. It’s a frustratingly purposeful thing. As if Dean cannot let himself be happy, cannot let himself have this. After all this time, and he is still the man who does not believe he deserves to be saved. 

The thing that Cas really, really likes is one they can’t do very often. Dean will never admit it, but Cas knows it’s something he needs at least a full day after to recover from, and they just don’t get that kind of guaranteed time together very often. 

Perhaps a year into their newly sexual relationship, Dean had raised his head from Cas’ neck, which he had been kissing rather enthusiastically, and said “Hey Cas?” 

“Mm?” Cas had mumbled, hands still sliding along the bare skin of Dean’s back, still marveling that he was allowed to touch him like this. 

“I… I’ve never asked if there’s something you… I mean, uh, if there’s anything you’d like to do, you know, together, you could tell me. I’d like to, uh, to do what you like, too.” 

"I like everything we do together, Dean," Cas said honestly, thumbs flitting across the dips in the tops of his shoulders. 

Dean mock-scowled at him, propped up on his elbow, naked body slung over Cas', unhurried and beautiful. 

"C'mon, I'll bet there's something kinky in that freaky little head of yours. I'm trying to be nice here, Cas." Dean couldn't keep the scowl up, his lips quirking in spite of himself. "I know you ain't had a lot of occasion to actually _do_ , or whatever, but there anything you think you want to try?" 

Cas must have given himself away by blinking or looking panicked because Dean's eyebrows rose. 

"I'm more than content with whatever you want to do," Cas said hastily. "Really, Dean, there is nothing I am lacking from our time together." 

"Aw, I can read you like an open book, sunshine," Dean said, grinning now, close to teasing. "What is it? C'mon, spit it out." 

"I… it's nothing," Cas mumbled, squeezing his eyes shut, embarrassed and feeling slightly trapped. He let himself have the second of darkness behind closed eyes before he looked back at Dean and sighed. "You wouldn't like it." 

"I'm open-minded," Dean said. His fingers, unfairly, trailed down to Cas' nipples, tracing circles there. "What is it? Feet stuff? Leather? Oh, I know, it's gonna be roleplay, isn't it?" 

Cas sighed again, helpless to Dean's grin, his eyes bright with amusement and a deeper curiosity, his fingers sparking against Cas' chest. "I would not be opposed to any of those things with you, if they were what you wanted. I suspect I would like almost anything, if it is with you. But… if you must know, I think what I would like is something like… um… body worship?" 

Dean wrinkled his nose. "Say what, now?" 

"It's just touching, Dean. I just… I'd like to touch every part of you, to praise your body and you. To take the time to appreciate every aspect of your being." 

Dean didn't really blush, but Cas could sense the heat coming off him, the blood in his face, that human thing that was so endearing in him. 

"Christ, Cas." Dean sat up, still straddling Cas, and rubbed his own jaw. He looked at the ceiling as if gazing heavenward. "You couldn't have just wanted to spank me or tie me up or something, could you?" he asked weakly. 

"Hm," Cas said, considering this for the first time. "Is that something _you_ want, Dean?"

"I - that's not - that's a different conversation." Dean's fingers tapped nervously against his own thighs. Cas reached out and stilled his hands. 

"I do not want to do anything that you do not want," Cas said. "I am not asking for anything, you will not be depriving me of something by not wanting this. I know it might be… difficult for you." 

Dean frowned at him, puffing up for a second like he was being challenged before sinking just as quickly back into his nervous energy. "I'm not saying no here, Cas. I'm just…" Dean tangled their fingers, looking down at their hands. "That's really what you want? Just to touch me?" 

Cas nodded, not quite hoping yet. "To touch and to be allowed to tell you how it feels to touch you." 

"Christ," Dean muttered again. He slid off of Cas and flopped down next to him on the mattress, chest pressed to Cas' side. "'Course that was gonna be your thing. Look, I'm… Sure, we could do that, if you really want. I just feel like, I don't know, like I'm not doing anything for you if I'm just lying there, you know? Like this still feels like something you'd be doing _for_ me, and I want…" Dean shifted on the mattress, his fingers clasping and unclasping where his hand rested on top of Cas' stomach. "I'd just like to… I dunno, to do something for you for once." 

"Oh. Dean." Cas rolled over to press a palm to his face and kiss him, such warmth in his stomach that it was unbearable. He didn't know what sort of cosmic flaw he was exploiting by getting to have this, even fleetingly, even in intermittent doses, but he was sure that he did not deserve it. "Everything you do is wonderful," Cas murmured, soft and reassuring. "I don't know what makes you think I don't get just as much if not more out of intercourse than you do. Would you like me to be more vocal in my pleasure?" 

"No, Cas, that's not…" Dean lowered his face to Cas' shoulder and banged his head lightly against it. "Nevermind. Got it. I'm glad it's good for you too. Uh. Sure. Sure? You can do the body thing, if you wanna." 

"Are you sure?" Cas whispered, this untapped thing curling, tenuous and desirous, into his chest. 

Dean flashed him one of his grins so full of easy charm - bravado veiling whatever nerves he might be feeling. "Sure I'm sure. Not like you're asking for much work from me here." 

This wasn't exactly true, and Cas was pretty sure they both knew it, but he didn't argue. 

"Thank you," Cas murmured, pressing his lips to Dean's cheek. 

"Hmph," Dean said, hands coming up to run along Cas' lower back as Cas pushed him gently back onto the mattress. 

Cas straddled Dean's lap this time, fingertips skating across his stomach and chest. He sat looking down at Dean for a long moment, overwhelmed by his own desire, unsure where to start now that he was allowed. He wanted to touch - wanted to taste - absolutely everywhere. 

"You're looking at me like I'm a roasted pig and you're trying to decide where to cut in first, man." Dean was still smiling, his hands now on Cas' thighs. 

"It's just that every part of you is so beautiful," Cas murmured, trailing the back of one finger down the center of Dean's chest. 

Dean huffed a little disbelieving sound, but kept himself from telling Cas to shut up the way he normally did whenever Cas complimented him. Cas' chest constricted, painful and near-human. 

"What do I… what do you want me to do with my hands? Can I touch you back, or…?" 

Cas picked up the hands resting on his thighs and kissed the back of Dean's fingertips. "I think I would rather you laid back and let me." 

"Right. Uh. I'll try." 

Cas looked at Dean's face, gazing thoughtfully down at him. "I _could_ tie you up for this, if that would help you feel more like I am taking what I want." 

Cas didn't miss the way Dean swallowed, or the sharpness of his exhale, or the sudden increase in his arousal pushing against Cas' thigh. Cas filed these things away for other future uses. 

"Uh," Dean said, just blinking at him for a moment, all of that heat rushing to his face again. "I… uh… fuck. Yeah. Let's do that." 

Cas kissed Dean's knuckles. "Are you sure?" he asked again. 

"You don't have to keep asking that. Yeah, man. I'm down." 

Cas used his discarded tie to bind Dean’s wrists above his head, tight enough to restrict but loose enough that if he really wanted to get out of it, he could. And then Cas flipped Dean neatly over on to his stomach. 

Dean made a surprised noise and then laughed into the pillow where he landed as Cas pinned him down between his thighs again, settling over him. 

“Nerd angel,” Dean muttered under his breath. 

Cas leaned over Dean’s head and kissed his outstretched hands again. He rubbed his fingers between Dean’s, caressed over his knuckles, kissed down the back of his wrist and forearms. 

Dean’s breath was heavy, hot where it pooled into the pillow, his eyes shut as he tried not to squirm beneath the slow stroke of Cas’ hands. 

“One day,” Cas murmured, his voice catching a little in his throat. “I would like to have kissed every one of your freckles.” 

Dean snorted. “Yeah, okay, good luck with that. Pretty sure that’d take a couple of years or a tongue bath.” 

“I’d prefer to take years,” Cas said earnestly, kissing the freckles just above Dean’s elbow. 

Dean breathed out, long, low, and Cas knew he’d heard the declaration there. It was the closest they had ever come to talking about a future. 

“Cas…” 

“But I’m open to the tongue bath,” Cas amended, and when he kissed Dean’s elbow, he ran his tongue over the skin. 

Dean laughed, squirming slightly under Cas’ weight, some of the tension bleeding out of his shoulders. “I swear to god, if you start licking me…” 

Cas ran his tongue over Dean’s other elbow, just to make him laugh again, before catching the skin there between his teeth and sucking gently. Dean squirmed some more. 

“You’re so weird,” he said, but it was fond. Cas didn’t mind when he said it like that. 

Cas took his time, greedy now that he was allowed to linger over Dean’s body, filled with the desire, the _need_ , to touch every part of this man that he had once rebuilt out of Hell. He ran his fingers down Dean’s arms, mouth chasing after, up to his shoulders where he fit his hand against the mark he’d left on Dean’s skin from his first touch. 

Dean shivered, the way he always did when Cas put his hand there, the electric energy that always thrummed between them manifesting in heat against Cas’ palm and the mark. 

“You were a possessive bastard even back then, huh?” Dean said gruffly, trying to break the tension the way he always did. Cas let him. 

Cas traced the outline of his own fingerprints, this imprint he had left not so much on Dean’s skin as on the soul that he had once gripped so tight and raised up. “Possessive,” Cas murmured thoughtfully, nails trailing around the handprint. “Am I?” 

He kissed the mark and Dean let out a sound he’d never made before, something involuntary and near keening. Cas rubbed his thumb over his own thumbprint, kissed the raised skin again. 

“I suppose I did brand you, didn’t I?” Cas whispered against Dean’s skin. “I meant to claim you as Heaven’s, the mark on all souls who have been saved. I did not think to claim you as mine.” Cas kissed up Dean’s shoulder to the curve of his neck where Dean’s head was turned to the other side. “Even if the moment I touched your soul, I knew.” Cas rested his face in the soft skin of Dean’s neck, inhaling the smell of him - that gunpowder-whiskey-leather smell of home. “I will not say you are mine if you do not want to be, Dean. But I touched your soul, and it was… You were the most singular point of being in the universe, everything collapsed in on itself into this point of light. I saw you and I knew… I was an angel of Heaven, Dean, and I had never known the sort faith stitched into your soul. Your unyielding love. It was blinding and unbearable. I thought that looking at you must be something like what other beings feel when they look at an angel’s true form. Only instead of burning, you…” Cas’s breath hitched against Dean’s neck. He was still caressing Dean’s other shoulder with his right hand, his left slotted against the proof that he had once touched the raw soul of Dean Winchester, runaway savior of Heaven. “You unmade me. Slowly, I think, and then all at once. From the moment I touched your soul, I think some part of me came undone for you.” 

Dean wasn’t laughing anymore, wasn’t joking his way out of this. His breath was shallow and his hands clenched and unclenched where they were bound above his head. 

Cas kissed the back of his neck, then lower over his spine. He spread his hands over the arches of Dean’s shoulders and told him how they reminded him of cathedrals. He rubbed the knobs of his spine, told Dean it was like the pillars of a coliseum, pressed out the knots beneath his right shoulder blade. He told Dean how he could trace the curve of canyons into the graceful slope of his lower back. 

Cas kissed him everywhere. Dean’s skin was warm to the touch, but he shivered under the brush of Cas’ breath, making little noises every so often that Cas couldn’t quite identify. He wanted to learn them. He wanted to memorize every inch of this man, every sound he made. 

“I could map out the world on your body,” Cas said, soft as he’d ever been, running his fingers along the breadth of Dean’s back muscles. “And it wouldn’t be enough to tell you how important you are. How - how loved you are in this life.” 

It was perilously close to crossing a line, and Cas knew it. He waited, hesitant, for Dean to push back or go stiff, but he did neither. 

“Not for your body, Dean,” Cas went on, pressing his mouth to the dip of Dean’s lower back, thumbs stroking over the sides of his hips. “Although it is a good body. A beautiful, achingly beautiful, body. But do you know how deeply you are cared for? How much love is reflected back into your soul? Sometimes I think the gravitational well of your love and conviction must curve spacetime, that your being is so singular that it could tear apart the laws of physics as much as the law of Heaven.” 

Dean made a whimpering sort of noise, arching his back slightly, not squirming away this time but pushing closer. “Cas…” 

Cas looked up at the sound in Dean’s voice, that way his own name was broken, gutted. Dean was crying, tears already tracking down his cheeks. 

Cas moved back up his body and kissed him there, tasted the saltwater of Dean’s tears - like the ocean, like the primordial waves that had once housed all of creation. 

“Do you want me to stop?” Cas asked gently, stroking Dean’s face, kissing his closed eyelids, his nose, his mouth. 

Dean took a few shuddering breaths and didn’t open his eyes. “No,” he whispered, as if confessing. 

“Are you sure?” 

Dean nodded, face still scrunched up. “M’sure.” 

“Okay.” 

Cas kissed quickly down Dean’s side, back to the small of his back, and he let his hands trail over Dean’s ass, both thumbs sliding down that crevice between. Dean was so warm in his hands. 

Cas pushed Dean’s legs apart, and he simply didn’t have the words for this part of Dean’s body, so he followed the brush of his fingers with his mouth and tried to let his tongue show appreciation with something other than words. 

Dean made a noise that was muffled into his pillow and arched back against Cas. He muttered something incoherent and Cas pressed his tongue into him, Cas’ hands tight on the spaces where ass and thigh met. 

“Jesus, fuck,” Dean said, audible this time. “Cas...” 

Cas felt the little thrill he always felt whenever Dean said his name just to say it. They had done this before, but only as a part of preparation, not an act on its own. As always, Dean’s pleasure made Cas ache and throb for him, warmth curling in his chest and stomach, a warmth that was so human. 

Cas took his time, and it seemed to calm Dean in a way, perhaps the relief of some more tangible sexual release, perhaps just the break from Cas’ words pouring over him like sacrament. When Cas finally pulled back, he kissed the backs of Dean’s thighs, running his tongue lightly over the skin just a little. Dean made a muffled little noise of protest, but Cas ignored him. He kissed the backs of Dean’s knees, telling him that the veins there were like the trails of minerals in the Redcliffs of the Mojave desert. He caressed the tight muscles of his calves, cupped his ankles in his hands, ran his fingers feather-light over the soles of his feet and between his toes. 

Dean didn’t even complain, just lay there with his still outstretched hands clenched together. 

Dean was no longer crying by the time Cas turned him over onto his back, but Cas traced the taste of saltwater down his face anyway, kissed his temples, his ears, his cheekbones, his jaw. Cas went as slowly over the front of Dean’s body, telling him that his clavicle was like the Viaduc de Millau in France, a bridge spanning the depths of his chest. 

Dean tried to reach for Cas instinctively, bringing his bound hands up, and Cas pinned them right back down. 

“Keep your hands above your head, Dean,” Cas said. 

“Bossy,” Dean muttered, but Cas could tell he was pleased about it. Cas filed this too away for future consideration. 

Cas murmured about the unseen Enochian etched into Dean’s ribs, another way that Cas had left his mark on Dean’s very bones. He told Dean how warm and breathless it was to be crushed into Dean’s chest and stomach, how the muscles of his chest and slight curve of his belly fit so perfectly against Cas. He told Dean that the dip of his hip bones were Interandean Valles, that he could draw the topography of Dean’s body out of the natural wonders of the world. 

Dean was trembling beneath Cas’ hands, not crying anymore but quietly shaking. Cas spent some time silently appreciating the anatomy of Dean’s testicles and penis, like every other part of him, his mouth gentle and making Dean buck into him. 

“The sounds you make,” Cas murmured, the quiet awe in his voice as genuine as the first time they’d lain together, as genuine as all the times after. “It makes me feel like I must be burning - like surely this feeling shines too brightly to be beheld.” 

“Cas…” Dean said again, staring back at him this time, his green eyes wide. He looked a little unmade himself. 

When Cas had caressed and kissed him from the insides of his bound wrists to the tops of his toes, he slid back up between Dean’s legs. He stretched over Dean’s body, pinning his bound wrists down and kissing him on the mouth again, Dean whimpering softly against his lips and opening for him. 

They kissed for a long time, slow and unending, Cas’ hands moving to cup Dean’s face or thread through his hair. Dean rocked his hips up against Cas and Cas met him with a slow downward thrust against his thigh, but he was unhurried about it. Cas was so sated with the feel and taste of Dean, with the relief of finally having spoken a dozen of the hundred of thoughts that Dean brought out in him. 

“Thank you, Dean,” Cas said, finally breaking away from Dean’s mouth. “Thank you. It is such a privilege to know your body like this.” 

Dean flopped his head back onto the pillow, still staring up at Cas with an expression he didn’t know how to categorize. It was something a little painful, a little afraid. 

“Cas,” Dean whispered. He wasn’t crying, but his eyes were overbright. “Please. Please. You can’t… I need…” 

“Oh,” Cas said. “Yes. If you would like to, yes.” 

Dean’s fingers twitched as if he wanted to reach for Cas again. “Please,” he mumbled. 

Cas went slow again, with tongue and fingers and lubrication, slow enough that Dean writhed beneath him and said “Please, Cas, please,” again. 

Cas had never intentionally made Dean plead for anything, never would have denied him a thing. He pulled his fingers out this time though, and made him wait through another long kiss, felt the way Dean whimpered into his mouth. It was a heady, unthinkable power to make Dean sound like that. 

It was slow at first when Cas finally slid into him. Dean tilted his head back, Adam’s apple bobbing in his throat, hands clenching again. Cas had to catch his own breath. He always did. Dean was so beautiful, the most beautiful person Cas had ever met, glowing with that beauty in a way that no one else did. To connect with him, to be with him like this, it was true worship. 

Cas couldn’t describe how it felt, to have Dean wrapped around him, to feel him stretch for him, to be buried in him, inside his warmth and finally, finally, almost close enough. There weren’t words to do justice to the way it felt to have earned his trust like this, to know that so few people ever had or would see him like this, that Dean could have had nearly anybody in the world - human, angel, monster, or demon - and he had, against all odds, picked Cas to share this vulnerability with. 

It was slow, until it wasn’t, until Dean begged him and Cas told him he deserved to have whatever he wanted, that he deserved to feel pleasure and happiness and love. Dean orgasmed with Cas breathing these things in his ear, and he kept his legs wrapped tight around Cas until he too had finished, and for some time after that, both of them collapsed in place and panting into each other. 

Cas slipped out, undid his tie from Dean’s wrists and flopped over onto the mattress. Dean rolled over to bury his face in Cas’ chest before Cas even reached for him, and Cas wrapped his arms tight around him as if afraid Dean might run away if he didn’t. 

“Thank you,” Cas murmured again into Dean’s hair. “Oh Dean. You are such a good man. So lovely and so good.” 

Dean let out a little choked sob against Cas’ skin. He was still shaking. He didn’t stop trembling for a long time, and Cas just held him through it, told him again that he was beautiful and good, that he deserved good things, that he was wanted. 

Nearly an hour later, finally coming down a little, Dean had whispered “You said I didn’t have to be yours.” 

Cas had closed his eyes and swallowed, his nose buried in Dean’s hair. “No. Of course not.” 

Dean was silent for a moment. “Dunno, Cas,” he murmured.“Tell me I am anyway.” 

Cas sucked in a breath and pressed the flat of his palms to Dean’s back, pressing him in, holding him. “You’re mine, Dean. You’re mine, and I’m yours.” 

A little while later, Cas let out a deep sigh and made to get up. Dean’s hand shot out, catching his arm. 

“Don’t go,” Dean said, voice low and a little broken. 

Cas stroked his hair, pleased in a way he couldn’t describe. “I was just going to get a towel for you.” 

Dean shook his head, not raising it from Cas’ chest. “Please don’t leave.” 

Cas wasn’t entirely sure if they were talking about the moment or something more, but he settled back into the bed, unbothered by the extremely human mess they’d made if Dean wasn’t. “Of course, Dean. I’m here as long as you’ll have me.” 

Dean nodded and curled up tighter against him with a little sigh, shoulders finally relaxing. He was asleep seconds later. 

Cas was grateful that they were the only ones in the bunker the next day. Dean seemed confused, maybe even ashamed, when he woke up, but he didn’t push Cas away as he sometimes did after they’d had sexual relations - instead he was… well, affectionate. He seemed to want, maybe even need, to be near Cas. Cas was more than happy to oblige, but Dean was quiet and far away in his thoughts even as he touched Cas near constantly throughout the day. They didn’t really talk, just did everything together in a not unpleasant silence. Dean didn’t want to talk, and Cas didn’t push.

Dean was back to normal the day after. He woke up, opened one eye, blinked blearily up at Cas and said “Listen, man, you ever touch my feet outside of your little kink, I will kick you out of bed so fast it’ll make you motion sick.”

“That’s not how motion sickness works,” Cas said. 

Dean mock-scowled at him, raising a finger warningly. “Not the point.” 

The point, really, was that they didn’t talk about it. Dean had let Cas repeat the experience a few times, and each time Dean had become overwhelmed at some point and cried. It was always just a little too much, Cas pushing him just a little too far, just trying to make Dean see that he was desired and loved. It was an exquisite kind of torture for Dean, and yet he allowed it, as confusing of a headspace as it seemed to put him in. 

Of course, they hadn’t done anything like that since Cas had died. Cas didn’t really mind, he understood that the intimacy of it was too much for Dean, that it would feel too much like breaking. Still, he missed being able to say more than few passing words about the way Dean made him feel, even if it had always been limited to those moments, an unspoken understanding that they did not speak about the things Cas said after the moment was over. 

The point, really, was that Cas let Dean define what they did, let him set the limits. But Cas knows Dean, better than Dean is ever willing to acknowledge. Cas knows what Dean was doing in sending his younger self to Turkey with him, knows that Dean was being sincere when he said that Cas could sleep with twenty-six year-old Dean if Cas wanted to. It’s just that Cas also knows that Dean refuses to accept his own limits. Cas is pretty sure if he were to have sex with another person - never mind the complications of that person being a version of Dean himself - it would hurt Dean immensely, despite the fact that they have never once discussed exclusivity. 

It makes Cas ache, how far away Dean feels. Even in the middle of everything, the curse, Chuck, the end of the world, it is difficult to accept that Dean still cannot seem to differentiate between the pain of things he does not believe he is allowed to have, and the pain of things which he should not have to suffer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter content warnings: internalized homophobia, self-esteem issues, depiction of sex, a very particular type of body worship/praise that is consensual but also emotional for one party, (lite) bdsm, sub-drop (not named as such), brief discussion of pornography, self-sabotage
> 
> Uhhh. Yep.
> 
> (Also yes, a John Green quote, more or less, did sneak in here, but in my defense, I do not think John would mind)


	13. Everything

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was half-asleep when I finished this, so apologies for what is presumably an increased number of typos, but earlier this evening I, an adult human, was crying in a park thinking about this dumb show and I just really wanted to post this tonight. 
> 
> I really appreciate all of your lovely and thoughtful comments! I have many that I have not replied to yet, but I do read them and they do bring that good, good serotonin. 
> 
> Content warnings in end notes.

It does not escape forty-one year-old Dean's notice that his past self is no longer looking him in the eye. 

Well. Good. 

Whatever happened on the mountain, Dean just doesn't want to hear the details. It's fine. It's not like he owns Cas, and even if he did have some claim on him, Dean already gave him the greenlight, and younger Dean is just himself anyway, so. 

So. 

They have bigger problems. Like Cas pulling a Victorian lady act and basically fainting in the living room. Any use of his power seems to make him dizzy at best now, and yet the stubborn son of a bitch won't stop overreaching. Dean loves and hates him for it in near-equal measure. 

Dean does like the idea of the clubs though. He always prefers to take a more active role in his own salvation, so having something closer to a weapon than a shield feels better. 

When Dean goes into the kitchen the next morning, younger Dean is already there, cooking up the entire contents of their fridge, it would seem. He taught Jack to make scrambled eggs the other day, which even Dean had to begrudgingly admit was something of a miracle, and Jack is back at it. Jack looks so pleased with himself, delighted to be included and contributing. 

Dean's feelings about Jack are still complicated. He forgives him. He loves him. But… it's hard to know what to feel sometimes about this kid who is halfway between three years old and a demigod. 

"Eggs!" Jack announces excitedly when he sees Dean. "We're making breakfast. I'm doing the eggs."

"Yeah, uh, I can see that," Dean says, helping himself to coffee from the pot. "We feeding the army today, or?" 

Younger Dean is flipping pancakes and he keeps his eyes resolutely on the pan. "Just wanted to make something," he mutters. 

Dean leaves it at that. 

Jack makes a veritable mountain of eggs - there is no stopping him, apparently - and younger Dean does pancakes, toast, and bacon. When the food is done, he frowns at the nearly empty coffee carafe and makes another pot. 

Dean just watches him, now that his younger self is busy avoiding eye contact. This version of him - twenty-six, smooth face, easy grin, body half-starved to a toneness Dean’s never fully gone back to… Christ, but if this  _ is  _ Chuck writing the script he’s gone a tad heavy handed with the fucking literary devices. 

Dean remembers the dreamscape where he’d first encountered himself, the first time he had to look at his own face as a full person, the whole “I-am-my-own-worst-nightmare” thing. He’d gotten that pretty quick. Honestly, this whole thing probably would have been easier if young Dean was evil, if Dean could just stake himself or something and be done with it. Hell, if he’d even been a self from the multiverse, Dean probably could have handled that. But this is  _ him.  _

This is doe-eyed, chock-full of daddy-issues, lonely and alone and frankly fucking scared that that’s all he’ll ever be, honest-to, well, Chuck, Dean Winchester. Dean keeps thinking of him as  _ pre-hell _ , like that is the great divide between who he was at twenty-six and who he is at forty-one, and that’s true, obviously, but there’s so much more to it than that. Yeah, forty-years in the pit is probably what has him fucked up the most, in ways no one but Cas even really knows about, but in his waking hours he can usually shove all that shit aside. Day-to-day, on average, Dean copes with Hell, because he has to, and because it’s like he once told Sam in the middle of Sam’s full-blown psychosis - it  _ feels _ different. Life feels different. 

It is awful, beyond awful, beyond the scope of words, but that inhuman feeling that comes with the memories of Hell sometimes works to Dean’s advantage. It’s how he compartmentalizes - and who gives a fuck if it’s healthy in the long-term if it keeps him from having a panic attack everytime something touches his stomach or he gets strung up on the job? That’s just crummy, ordinary life. 

Like it was just life, when dad died. It was just life, coming to the inevitable understanding that dad died to save Dean - that Dean was going to spend the rest of his life walking around with the weight of his father’s soul hanging off of his own. And it was more of this - the excruciating, unbendable, inexorable act of living - that his father’s last words to him were not “take care of your brother, boy,” as they should have been, but to tell Dean without context or any fucking clue what to do with it, that he might have to kill his brother. 

As if there was any version of twenty-six year-old Dean who would have been capable of doing that. 

Life was just Sam, dying in his arms. 

If anything, Dean thinks, looking at the way the too-big flannel hangs off of younger Dean’s frame as he piles food onto plates, that is probably the divide. This version of himself has never lost Sam - not for real. 

It’s not a question Dean wants to ask himself, but something in his subconscious rises up and asks it anyway: If twenty-six year-old Dean did get sent back to his timeline, would Dean try to stop him from selling his soul?

Dean breathes out too loudly and Jack looks over at him with his brow furrowed. Younger Dean is still aggressively not looking at him, so Dean just forces a smile and a shrug for Jack. 

Dean drinks his coffee, tries to drown himself in it really. When he breathes again, the question is still there. 

Would Dean do it all again? All of it? Thirty years on the rack and ten off? The apocalypse and breaking the first seal and every fucking thing that came after? 

Dean closes his eyes there at the breakfast nook and thinks that, if he could, he’d tell his younger self to go back further and do whatever it took to convince dad to let Dean die in that hospital. If Dean had just died when he was supposed to… But then, they were never in charge of the script. Heaven probably would have just brought him back. And dad and Sam would probably have killed each other at that time if Dean had died. He knows enough to understand that, at least. 

Loss, in this life, is probably the most fucked up thing that ever happens to Dean. Because even when he gets people back, there is still a part of him that has already learned to mourn them, that has died off without them. Of course it is a miracle to get someone back, of course he is grateful for all the chances that the people he cares about have somehow gotten, but there is always something in him that he has to coax back to life. Flowers at the grave that he stopped watering because it hurt too much to see the headstones. Loss is something that crawls into his being and makes a home there, somewhere it can't be extracted. 

Cas once told Dean, an unwilling audience to this particular conversation, that human blood is made inside of bones because it is the darkest part of the body and the most protected against sunlight and UV radiation. Dean had done his best to block Cas out at this particular juncture, but the thought had stuck with him. Everytime he thinks of something being "down to the bone," he imagines it curled in the darkest part of his marrow, so intrinsic to him that even light cannot touch it without breaking him open. 

That's where loss lives, Dean thinks. In his bones, out of the light.

Sam walks in to the kitchen, fresh out of the shower after his stupid morning run, and even though none of this crap is stuff he’d usually eat, he smiles when he sees the breakfast. His hair is still slightly damp, hanging loose except for one wet strand plastered to his temple. Dean can’t help the urge he has to fix it, the accompanying urge to grab his brother and just hold onto him until all of this has passed - just keep him safe. 

Younger Dean looks up and smiles at Sam, and no. Dean wouldn’t tell him not to sell his soul for Sammy. There’s no point. Both Deans would make the same choice again, if they had to. 

"Huh," Sam says. "What's the occasion?" 

"Nothing. Just got up early is all," younger Dean says. "You gonna tell me you only eat egg whites and wheatgrass for breakfast now?" 

"He's down to alfalfa sprouts and organic acai juice," Dean says. 

Younger Dean looks at him for the first time that morning, shaking his head with a mournful expression. "It's like he doesn't even know he's not in Hell anymore." 

Dean snorts. 

"I think I liked it better when you two weren't speaking," Sam mutters. 

Both Deans flash him their most becoming grins and Sam laughs at their synchrony, shaking his head and taking a plate. He points his fork at younger Dean. "Okay. I will do carbs for you, but no bacon." 

Younger Dean scowls. "You are the  _ worst. _ " 

Cas joins them a little while later, still carrying around his copy of the play in the original Greek, frowning at it like if he just stares hard enough it will spit out a cure to all their ills. 

Jack insists on giving Cas some of the scrambled eggs and Cas glances at younger Dean before taking a pancake, gingerly, of his own volition. Cas is always doing that sort of thing for Dean too, eating the food he makes, listening to the music he likes, watching movies with him. All this human shit Cas doesn't care about - he just cares about Dean, Sam, and Jack. He cares  _ so  _ much. 

Dean sees the way his past self's eyes go directly to Cas the moment he steps into the kitchen, the way younger Dean's energy changes, the way his whole being brightens when Cas indulges in his cooking. 

Fucking hell. Dean wonders if he's that obvious. If everyone can just see him unfurl towards Cas like a plant towards the sun, the way younger Dean does. It's sweet, and it's heartbreaking. If that's the way they are around each other, no wonder Sam (almost definitely) knows. 

Cas sits down next to Dean, and beneath the countertop of the breakfast nook he trails his fingers briefly above Dean's knee. Dean wants to lean into him. He just… he wants to stop fighting himself. He wants to be heartbreakingly sweet. He wants to curl into Cas' light and let it burn all the years of loss right out of his bones. 

But then, Dean thinks, he's pretty sure he's too brittle. He's pretty sure he'd just break. And they don't have fucking time for that. They never do. 

Dean touches his fingertips to Cas' thigh, but he doesn't linger. 

He wonders what happened in Turkey, and then promptly turns that thought off. 

"Any new revelations from the Greek?" Dean asks instead. 

Cas sighs and shakes his head, taking the tiniest bites of his food. "Nothing useful. The way the play ends is a bit odd, almost like there should have been a second play. But a lot of the ancient Greek playwrights had manuscripts that were lost, so whether or not one was actually written, we may never know." 

Sam frowns at him from across the countertop. "There isn't anything in the literature that mentions a sequel." 

Cas shrugs. "Perhaps there wasn't one. But the subplot of the gods' debate of the nature of human souls is never resolved and while the moral arc of Xerodicus is more or less finished, I would have expected to see a resolution with Clesus' soul in Hades, or at least have it mentioned. The journey to the underworld was such a prominent feature of this style of storytelling that to leave it out entirely feels purposeful. But we may never know." 

Dean spent the last few days reading Sam and Cas’ annotation on the play, and then looking into pottery repair. One idea they discussed was having Jack just mend the pieces of the vase, which they kept, but Dean is worried that will draw too much attention to him. The wards on the clay were apparently pretty powerful to stop Xerodicus from breaking out, which made sense if they were placed there by a god, but also means it might take a god or at least an angel at full strength to put it back together. 

"What are we thinking about trapping Cerodicus back in his pot?" Dean asks the kitchen at large. He swirls his coffee, not really thirsty for it, not hungry for the breakfast smells wafting around him. Not really anything. He wants a drink. 

Sam drums his fingers against the counter, looking off into the distance the way he does when he's rearranging research in his head. "Well, I think maybe there's a spell we could modify. I just… if we just knew more about the curse than what we got from the art auction blogs, I could be sure it's tailored correctly, but as it is…" Sam shrugs. "I feel like I'm flying blind with the Latin here." 

Younger Dean gives Sam a look. "Do you guys do a lot of magic?" 

"Uh." Sam exchanges a guilty glance with Dean. "Well. Depends what you mean by a lot." 

This, actually, is sort of a fair question. Sam knows enough occult shit by this point that if Dean met him off the street he'd probably think he was a witch. Dean can imagine what that would have looked like to himself at twenty-six, but they haven't exactly been able to afford ideological purity over the last decade. They are a perpetual moral gray at best. Sometimes, Dean's not sure how he lives with that. 

Younger Dean's eyes narrow, but he doesn't follow up on his question. 

"Anyway," Sam says hastily. "Charlie's also looking into it now, running some searches for us in forums, you know." 

Dean snorts. "What, you think there's gonna be an ancient cursed art Reddit?" 

"Yeah, actually, probably." Sam bites into a forkful of eggs and pancakes and sighs. "Okay. I admit, butter does make everything better." 

Younger Dean and Jack both beam at him. 

That afternoon they all take a break without really discussing it, and Dean just tries not to get too into his feelings as he watches younger Dean playing cards with Jack and Cas. Jack has gotten pretty good, and Cas is still abysmal. Dean watches his younger self laughing at something Cas has said, and Cas’ benign pleasure to have made this Dean laugh. Cas lifts his head and his eyes meet Dean’s across the room. He gives Dean a little smile, one that tries to pull Dean into the moment, that would include Dean if he wanted to be included. 

Dean drops his eyes to the magazine he isn’t reading. He doesn’t know exactly when Cas became this person who knows him at least second best in the world, knows things even Sam doesn’t know about Dean. Dean has never told anyone but Cas about that summer when he was thirteen, or about what really happened at Flagstaff, or admitted to anyone else about hooking when he was a teenager. He’s never told Sam about the time between twenty-three and twenty-four when he’d kind of been doing too many hard drugs. It hadn’t been a problem, not at first, just messing around with college kids mostly, and occasionally taking things off people in clubs. Dean’s never told Sam about the one night he took a handful of pills - who knows what it was, Dean sure didn’t - on nothing but a stomach full of Jim Beam and woke up two days later in a puddle of his own vomit. Dean had spent the next week sweating and shivering on Bobby’s couch, and Bobby hadn’t asked him any questions, just let him detox it out in South Dakota. 

But somehow, Dean has told all of this and more to Cas. It’s just come out over the years, slipping through Dean’s cracks just like Cas has slipped into them. It’s not just the big, traumatic shit, either. Cas is the only person who knows that Dean once almost enlisted in the military, that he’ll eat anything but he really hates mayonnaise, that Dean secretly really loves bluegrass. 

Well. Dean thinks, as he watches Cas lose at Black Jack for the fifth time in a row, he probably has to amend that last one. Kinda blew that cover the night they all got high together. Oh well. 

Dean doesn't exactly know how to place that memory. He woke up the next morning, still all cuddled up between Sam and Cas, disoriented and not really sure if he'd come out to his mom or not. He thinks Mary understood what he was going to say - but they'd both been pretty stoned, so… 

Anyway, the point is, if he wants to play The Steeldrivers'  _ If It Hadn't Been For Love  _ in the car with Cas, he just does. Cas doesn't even seem to care if Dean rewinds the same song over and over again. 

There are moments when Dean regrets introducing Cas to music. It wouldn’t be a problem if Cas would just get his own cassette player, but he always seems so eager to share the music he likes with Dean because he knows how much music means to him, and Dean could tell him that driver picks the music, but he never gives Cas what he really wants in the ways that matter, so he tries to do little things like letting him play Celine Dion when they’re alone in the car. Dean definitely, definitely does not sing along.

It's not  _ all  _ bad. Cas has become obsessed with Florence + The Machine, which makes sense since the album  _ Ceremonials  _ seems to have been written specifically for him, and with Leonard Cohen lately. The Leonard Cohen drives Dean a little nuts sometimes if Cas makes them listen to a full album, but Dean doesn't mind a song here and there. 

Well, truthfully… none of it is that bad. Even the frikkin' Enya. If they're alone in the car and Dean lets Cas pick the music, sometimes Cas will just lean back in his seat with his eyes closed and listen. And Dean has damn near crashed the car looking at him like that. Cas' moments of serenity are few and far between these days but they make Dean feel an unbearable fondness. It makes him want to give Cas control of the music, make Cas a garden or some shit, let him fill their home with stray cats. Just whatever it takes to give Cas peace. 

Sam flops down next to Dean, interrupting his thoughts - which is for the best, really. 

"How are you doing?" Sam asks without preamble. 

"You gotta stop asking me that, man." Dean lets the magazine fall to his lap and looks at his brother's tired face. "How are  _ you  _ doing?" 

Sam prods at the arm of his chair. "Eh. Not getting a lot of sleep, but I'm okay." 

"Eileen keeping you up?" Dean gives him a grin, wiggling his eyebrows. 

"No, you dumbass. Trying to keep you alive is keeping me up." 

"Ah. Well. Sorry?" 

"Shut up. I think this re-trapping Xerodicus thing is our best bet, but I'm worried about Jack using his power to fix the vase." 

“Yeah. I know.” Dean looks over at Jack, his grin wide and toothy as younger Dean banters with him. “Look… Maybe we should consider -” 

“No.” Sam cuts him off. “Don’t make me have this fucking argument with you again. This is not the time for you to get a stick up your self-sacrificing ass. Neither of you.” 

“It’s not worth jeopardizing our only plan to defeat… you know.” Dean waves his hand. “End game.” 

“Fuck you,” Sam says calmly. “It is.” 

“Sammy…” 

“Dean.” 

They glare at each other for a second, but neither of them can keep it up. Dean shakes his head, backing down slowly. 

“Okay. What about a hex box? Ask Rowena to jazz it up, maybe?” 

“Maybe.” Sam squints into the middle distance again. “I don’t love all the unknowns here. Fuck, this is a weird one.” 

“Yeah,” Dean agrees, looking at his younger self laying down the winning hand. 

“So. I’m asking again. You okay?”

Dean takes a second to answer. He shrugs. “I don’t know, Sam. You ever think about what kind of person you’d be if all the crap in our lives had never happened?” 

“You’d been through plenty of crap by the time you were twenty-six,” Sam says. 

Dean shakes his head, not really disagreeing, just disregarding it. “Yeah, but I’m talking about the real shit - Hell, Heaven, souls. Dad and Bobby and everyone else we care about. You still think about who you’d be if you stayed at Stanford?” 

“No.” Sam’s reply is quick, decisive. “I don’t think about that anymore. That was… I don’t know. I’m not that person anymore. Sometimes I think about what I’d do if we ever run out of apocalypses. Light at the end of the tunnel, you know? But no, I don’t really think about who I was at twenty-two. I don’t think he’d recognize me.” 

“Be glad you don’t have to find out, I guess,” Dean mutters, still looking at his younger self. 

Sam lets out a breath. “You were a good person then and you’re a good person now, Dean,” he says in his gentle Sam way. “I know it’s gotta be hard, but… that’s what matters, isn’t it?” 

Dean watches the way Cas looks at his younger self, and he doesn’t answer. 

Cas and Jack disappear together sometime in the late afternoon, bonding or working through Jack's evolving power issues, or whatever. Sam is plugged in to his computer, talking to a professor of antiquity somewhere in Massachusetts. Which leaves Dean faced with younger Dean, who is once again avoiding eye contact. 

Dean feels a lot of things toward his past self - hatred, anger, jealousy, grief. Those all came up first of course. But having to see himself this way, having to confront not just what a fucking disaster he was at that age but also how young and human and hurting… Dean doesn't know what the fuck to do with this burgeoning desire to take care of twenty-six year-old Dean, to help him. 

How can he hate himself when this self is just a kid? An overgrown kid, okay, but he's still young. Still hopeful. 

Dean was made to take care of people. Literally made for it, whether by Heaven or John or Chuck. That's his whole fucking deal. He can't just turn it off. 

"Hey," Dean says. "You wanna go carve up those branches? Sand down a handle at least?" 

"Oh," young Dean says. "Sure, I guess." 

They take the woodwork outside so the scraps won't get all over the floor and cause Sam to have a conniption. They sit with their backs against the garage door and chip away in silence for awhile, identical pocket knives skinning the bark to identical leaves. 

"How come you don't wear your necklace anymore?" younger Dean asks eventually. He's looking moodily down at his branch, moving on to the sandpaper. 

"Oh. Huh." Dean hadn't really registered the amulet his younger self is still wearing, or his ring, or his bracelets. He's like a little magpie. Dean used to carry around his home like that, trying to make a sense of belonging out of things that he'd been given or that he found meaning in. 

"Yeah. Uh. Long story. Sam and I were kind of fighting and I… I threw it away." 

Younger Dean looks up sharply, his hand going to the amulet, staring at Dean like he's crazy. "What the hell? How could you just throw it away? What the fuck is wrong with you?"

Dean doesn't want to explain about how the necklace had developed this other meaning to do with God and abandonment. He doesn't want to have to tell his younger self about Chuck. Not unless he has to. "If it makes you feel any better, I did regret it." 

"Jesus fucking Christ." Younger Dean drops the branch and tools onto the ground and springs to his feet. He paces wildly, and Dean sets aside his own tools. 

"I don't get you man," younger Dean says finally, stopping in front of him. He meets Dean's eyes now, and his are full of anger. "What the hell is wrong with you? Why does none of this matter to you? The way you treat everyone, it's such crap. Throwing away your necklace, when it's the one fucking gift that ever meant anything? I get it, you went to Hell and angels are real and that's fucked up and terrifying, fine. But everything you've got now…" 

Dean gets to his feet too, leaning back against the garage door with his arms folded over his chest. 

"You don't get it, Bits. Trust me, you've got no idea." 

"Stop calling me that!" younger Dean snaps. His hands are balled into fists. "Maybe I don't get it, but I don't care, okay? You're such an asshole, and you don't even… You don't…" younger Dean struggles for words, building up towards something. He does exactly what Dean would have done at that age of course, back when he didn't have the language to express himself (not that he's much better these days), when he was all impetuous anger and poor self-control. 

Younger Dean punches Dean in the face. 

Dean puts his hand up to his cheekbone and spits out blood where the impact made him bite the inside of his cheek. 

"Okay" he says, his own anger rising, but his self-control mildly better these days. "I'll give you that one. But if you-" 

Younger Dean tries to hit him again before he's even done speaking, and Dean catches his fist, pushing it away. 

"Enough," Dean says. It comes out like a growl.

It isn't enough. Dean blocks the next punch on his arm and tries to grab younger Dean's wrist but he slips out of his grasp. 

They're fighting now, and Dean is somewhat impressed with his past self beneath his welling frustration. His adrenaline kicks in and he just lets the act of fighting take over, this thing that he is good at, that he's known his whole life how to do. Of course, they are fundamentally the same person, so mostly they just block each other's blows, but Dean does land two solid hits to younger Dean's face and a quick jab of the elbow to his solar plexus. He's faster, stronger, more experienced, and he knows exactly how this is going to end, but the release of all this tension is a thrill he can't quite ignore. 

Younger Dean takes a miscalculated step into his swing and Dean sweeps his legs out from under him, catching his arm and using his own momentum to bring him down. 

Dean drops with him, sinks his knee in younger Dean's stomach, fist raised and cocked back. His younger self looks up at him, hatred and fear and anger and pain in his eyes all at once. His nose is bleeding. 

"Do it," he breathes, looking at Dean's raised fist. "Just fucking do it!" 

Dean takes one shaking breath and slams his fist into the gravel next to younger Dean's head. Younger Dean shut his eyes at the movement, and he breathes out in a sharp burst when he realizes the blow did not land on his face. 

"Don't," Dean says, leaning down close. "Do that again. Next time, I won't pull my punches." 

Younger Dean stares up at him, breathing hard. His face contorts as the anger seems to be superseded by all that unnamed pain. 

"How do you not remember what it was like?" He reaches up and grabs a fistful of Dean's shirt. "To be me - sleeping in the Impala most nights, scraping by on granola bars and gas station coffee, and drifting after dad, just waiting to die bloody and alone in some small town, wondering how long it would even take anyone to notice I was gone? And you're just willing to walk away from that, willing to die? You can't do that. This is your life. I have nothing, and you - you have  _ everything _ ." Younger Dean's face scrunches up further, blood slowly dripping down over his mouth. "You have Sam back, and an actual fucking home with a kitchen and food, you have people who care about you and know you, you have  _ Cas. _ " His voice breaks on Cas' name. 

And oh. 

Dean feels every last ounce of fight go out of him. He slides off younger Dean but stays kneeling next to him. 

"I remember," Dean says to the gravel. 

Younger Dean sniffs, sitting up and pressing the sleeve of his flannel - one of Sam's shirts - to his bloody nose. 

"You sure don't fucking act like it." His voice isn't any friendlier. 

"Yeah. No. I guess not." Dean runs a hand through his hair. He's suddenly tired again. He's just tired. That brief spike of adrenaline drops him on his ass and he just wants to curl up in a corner where no one will bother him. "Look. It's… You're right, okay? I don't act like I appreciate what I have, but it's not… I spend what feels like every second of my life just trying not to lose what I've got. And you have no idea - you can't understand what we've lost. You just can't. I couldn't have, when I was you. So yeah, I have Sam and Cas and Jack, for now. But the way I see it, it's just as likely I won't have them again tomorrow. And don't get me wrong, I'm glad as hell to have them, and this bunker, and everything. I may be old, but I don't have amnesia. I remember, okay? But it's not… I'm not you anymore, not really. And who I am, the things I've done… I don't ever get to rest on this. I don't get to assume I can keep any of this. So don't think I don't fucking care about what I've got. Every single thing I've done for the past ten years has just been trying to keep what I do have safe." 

Younger Dean is staring at him when Dean looks back up. 

"That's a load of shit. You know that right?" Younger Dean isn't glaring anymore, just frowning at him. "The way you treat Cas… that's got nothing to do with trying to keep him." 

Dean raises his gaze to the sky. It's cloudy. Fall is deepening all around them and it's going to be cold soon. Dean doesn't want to take on God in the winter. He just doesn't. Somehow it will feel like even the elements are against them. 

"Maybe it's got more to do with trying to keep him alive," Dean says at last. He clambers to his feet and reaches down a hand. Younger Dean hesitates a moment before taking it and letting Dean help him up. When they're level again, he doesn't let go. 

"You love him, don't you?" 

It shouldn't be a surprise. Dean knew his past self was falling for Cas, obviously. He kind of figured younger Dean had picked up on the weird intense energy between Dean and Cas and that he must have come to the conclusion they were doing something together. But he'd had so many  _ issues  _ about liking men when he was twenty-six (not that that's much better these days either). He wasn't really expecting to have to talk about it. 

He's not sure he can. 

"I… That's not the point," Dean says. 

Younger Dean lets go of him but he looks at Dean like he's crazy again. "It's  _ kind of _ the point." 

Dean groans and puts his head in his hands. "I hate this," he mutters into his palms. 

"Do you?" 

When Dean looks up, younger Dean fixes him with a stubborn stare. 

"Do you really hate me? After all this time?" 

"I…" Dean is at a loss for words again. Of course he hates himself. He was made for that, too, by all the forces in his life. 

But, the thing is, the version of himself standing before him is a fully realized person. Dean as he exists in his own head, well, that's a different story. He can't see himself as having all these complexities that twenty-six year-old Dean so stubbornly keeps reminding him about. Looking at this flesh-and-blood copy of himself isn't like looking in a mirror and hating what he sees. It's more like this Dean is another long-lost relative to whom Dean has a gruff older brotherly duty. He's just a person. 

"I don't think so," Dean says. 

Younger Dean kicks at the gravel beneath their feet. "You gotta stop being such a dick to the people who care about you, dude," he says. 

It's like being kicked in the teeth. 

"I know," Dean says, because he does. He almost adds that he wishes he knew how to stop - that he knows he's a jackass and it's not like he wants to be, he just can't figure out how to hit the fucking brakes. 

Younger Dean snorts and then winces when fresh blood drips out of his nose. "Ah crap." 

Dean touches his own cheek. It's tender and he can tell it'll bruise up nicely. "We're about to be in trouble, you realize that, right?" 

Younger Dean rolls his eyes. "Yeah, yeah. Sam and Cas are both gonna have a fit, aren't they?" 

"Yep. I'm totally throwing you under the bus, by the way." 

"Fine." Younger Dean touches his nose gingerly. "Where'd you learn to fight like that, anyway?" 

Dean shrugs. "Purgatory, mostly." 

Spending a year of his life fighting monsters almost nonstop taught Dean plenty of technique. Fighting had become such a default state in Purgatory that the first time Benny kissed him - in Dean's defense, it had been directly following a fight with some weird ass snuggly toothed monsters - Dean had thought he was attacking him. Dean had nearly taken Benny's head off before he'd realized what was happening. 

"Christ," younger Dean mutters. He shuffles awkwardly and scratches at the back of his neck. "I guess I… I do know that you care about your people. I don't understand the way you do it, and I still think you could be less of a dick, but I don't have a clue what Hell or Purgatory or any of this shit is like. So." 

"So," Dean echoes. He takes the apology for what it is. "Did Sam show you  _ The Mandalorian  _ yet?" 

Younger Dean's eyes widen. "What? No. He said we watched all the new  _ Star Wars _ movies." 

Dean grins, and it's not even particularly forced this time. "Oh man. Just you wait. It's a whole TV show and it is  _ excellent.  _ You wanna try and sneak back to my room without getting busted for busting each other up? If we make it past Sam we can watch it on my laptop." 

Younger Dean smiles tentatively back at him, and just like that, they've moved past something between them. "Yeah. Cool. Can we get wood shavings on your floor?" 

"Literally as long as Sam doesn't have to see it." 

They gather up the discarded cherry branches and Dean looks down at his as they head back inside. It feels heavy and solid in his hand. Something loosens in the tight knot in his stomach as he looks between his branch and the back of younger Dean's head as he eases the bunker door open. 

It's not a weight lifting, it's just something settling into place. 

Younger Dean still has hope. Still cares enough not to cut down a tree that Cas liked. He'd be good to Sam and Cas. He'd be an even weirder father-figure for Jack, but he'd do alright at that too. This, all of this, would mean everything to him. 

Younger Dean could probably let the light in. 

Dean loosens his fingers around the half-finished club and imagines letting go.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter Content Warnings: internalized homophobia, self-hatred, self-esteem issues, brief reference to past substance abuse, brief reference to past (non-fatal) overdose (not explicitly named but could be read as a suicide attempt), grief, allusion to past incidents of abuse, brief reference to sex work (implied underage)


End file.
